Protecting 30% of the planet’s terrestrial and marine environments would be a huge step in the right direction, a “very ambitious” project. However, if this promise is not accompanied by other measures that address the “underlying causes” of biodiversity loss, it will be “not enough”, warns Anne Larigauderie, the administrative secretary of the ” IPCC of biodiversity”.
“We know how to transform our agricultural model, we know how to use fewer pesticides. It is above all a question of political will”, maintains in an interview with the To have to the one who is at the head of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES, according to the English acronym).
Responsible for summarizing the state of scientific knowledge on biodiversity, the IPBES plays a key role in informing the negotiations of the 15e UN conference on biodiversity (COP15) in Montreal. Its first global biodiversity assessment, published in 2019, highlighted that one million animal and plant species are currently “on the verge of extinction”.
Five direct causes — including habitat loss, climate change and pollution — lead to the degradation of the living world, but these depend on underlying causes that “must be tackled”, says Ms.me Larigauderie. Our “production and consumption habits”, “our value systems” must therefore imperatively be reviewed if we hope to protect nature.
Among the twenty or so targets debated in Montreal to arrive at a possible global framework on biodiversity, that of protecting 30% of the territory by 2030 is often a priority. Other quantified targets are also found in the draft agreement: halving the rate of introduction of invasive species, halving the leakage of fertilizers into the environment, reducing the use of pesticides, for example.
The boss of the IPBES regrets that, in the first days of COP15, some countries have indicated that they “do not want any figures in the targets”. These positions can still evolve, of course, but such an outcome would be “dramatic”, in the opinion of Mme Larigauderie. Without quantified targets, “we don’t have a roadmap, we can’t measure anything. It would be a failure,” she says.
Assuming that only the 30% of protected areas by 2030 are the subject of a quantified objective, the conference would end on a bittersweet note. “If, at the same time, we don’t reduce the use of pesticides, if we don’t tackle climate change, etc., things won’t really change,” says this trained biologist.
In addition, COP15 delegates will need to agree to ensure effective defense of protected areas. The Aichi targets, adopted at COP10 in 2010, aimed to protect 17% of terrestrial habitats and 10% of oceans, but these targets have not been achieved, in particular because of the laxity of certain governments.
“A lot of countries say on paper that they’re protecting territory, but then there aren’t enough resources available to enforce the regulations,” says Ms.me Larigauderie. It is also necessary, she believes, that the 196 member countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity set guidelines so that protected areas are significant places from an ecological point of view and “not just what remains”.
Like the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who declared at the opening of COP15 that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction”, Mme Larigauderie feels a growing sense of urgency.
From the bottom of the seas to the heights of the atmosphere, extremely rare are the regions of the world which are not subject to the splashes of human activity. Nature has thus been in significant decline for 50 years, she points out. Deforestation, overfishing and urban sprawl exert pressures that exceed the capacity of ecosystems to absorb the blows.
The “contributions of nature” are also weakened, according to IPBES reports. For example, pollinating insects are less numerous, and therefore less effective in ensuring the reproduction of plants that feed humanity. Microorganisms in the soil become depleted, forcing farmers to use more polluting inputs — a ‘vicious circle’.
Nature’s contribution to regulating the climate is also deteriorating. Shrinking forest cover reduces its ability to sequester carbon. The disappearance of green spaces also makes environments more vulnerable to erosion or storms. “In some places, it even leads to conflicts, underlines Mme Larigauderie. Where the land is completely degraded, people leave, as seen with climate change. »
Thus, even if 30% of the world is protected, “there must also be as much nature as possible in the remaining 70%”, insists the administrative secretary of the IPBES. The radical changes that this implies are possible, but will require a strong agreement in Montreal. “We have to believe in it, we have to hope that there will be a surge, a political will, to reach quantified and ambitious agreements”, concludes Anne Larigauderie.