Integrating biodiversity targets from local to global
levels
A shared earth and ocean approach linking biodiversity and
people
– for the post-2020
Global Biodiversity Framework
Supporting policy brief for SBSTTA 24/3 Statement from
Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance (ACBA)
Embargo lifting – Thursday 12 August, 15:00 hrs Eastern
Standard Time
(22:00 East Africa Time/21:00 South Africa/Central European
Time)
An unprecedented increase in ambition
is needed this decade to reverse the decline in nature. With most of the
world’s people spread across half of the land surface in ‘shared spaces’, such
as agricultural and pastoralist systems, a new paradigm is needed for
conservation action that is both nature-positive and people-centred.
In this study to be released on
Thursday 12 August in the journal Science, a group of African scientists,
conservationists and community leaders present a ‘shared earth’ framework to
guide repair of humanity’s relationship with nature. They focus attention on
connecting people with nature in the places where they live. In these places, natural spaces should be
retained or restored to cover 20% of all area locally, in order to benefit
people fully, as well as contribute to global conservation targets.
In 2021/2022 the Global Biodiversity
Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity will finally be adopted by
the 198 member states at the Convention’s 15th Conference of Parties in China –
and a vast increase in effectiveness will be needed compared to the last
decade, to succeed in its ambitions.
‘We have seen conservation action
focused in only the most intact and pristine locations, in Africa and across
the globe, but neglecting the places where many people need it most – around
their farms and homes”, said lead author David Obura, Director at Coastal
Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO East Africa) and a
member of the Earth Commission. “While we need intact and untouched nature in as
much area of land and ocean as possible, the neglect of natural systems in
‘working’ or ‘shared’ land and seascapes has led not only to avoidable losses,
but also to great hardship to millions of people, many of them poor, who lose
access to basic benefits such as water filtration, pollination for their crops
and wild plants and animals their cultures traditionally used and valued”.
The study calls for conservation to
fully take on a human face. Legacies of inequitable impacts of protected areas
on local and indigenous communities have made many countries in the Global
South and varied communities distrustful of global conservation targets and
initiatives they feel are thrust upon them and don’t address their local needs
and contexts.
“Local and indigenous communities
have lived with nature for centuries and even millenia, and hold rights to
parts of the planet and nature that have often been usurped in recent decades”,
said David Obura. “They know better than anyone that a better balance and
greater sustainability is needed at all levels on our planet, but they have not
driven the decline in nature and should not have to bear an unfair burden to
conserve nature where it is still intact. This framework will help put local
communities in charge where they live, recognize their local conservation
practices and link their efforts as well as the need for resources to national
and global networks for restoring balance between people and nature”.
The ‘shared earth, shared ocean’
framework provides guidance for consolidating and upscaling existing
conservation successes, through focusing on the local context. New recognition
of ‘other effective conservation measures’ will add to the potential of
Protected Areas, in large part because of the legitimacy and commitment that
full involvement of local people and institutions will bring to decision-making
on conserving nature.