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Chapter 4
Prospects and challenges for achieving the 2010 biodiversity target
In Chapter 2, the survey of current trends in biodiversity found that, according to the set of headline indicators, biodiversity loss is continuing. The analysis of the state of implementation of the Convention presented in Chapter 3 revealed that, while advances are apparent in some areas, more action at the national level is urgently needed. Against this background, the present chapter addresses the prospect for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target and sets out some of the key challenges to progress.
In surveying prospects and challenges for meeting the 2010 target, this chapter draws not only on the analysis of the headline indicators from Chapter 2, but also on the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The Assessment was the largest-ever global evaluation of the relationship between human well-being and ecosystems, with the participation of over 1,300 experts from 95 countries. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is also significant in that it directly responded to requests for information from international environmental conventions, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and was designed to meet the needs of other stakeholders as well, including business, civil society, and indigenous peoples. The main findings of the Assessment relating to biodiversity are summarized in Box 4.1.
The headline indicators and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment together paint a picture of ongoing biodiversity loss at all levels. Tropical forests, many wetlands and other natural habitats are decreasing in extent and are becoming increasingly fragmented; the range and number of populations of many species groups are declining; and more species are becoming threatened with extinction. In fact, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment finds that biodiversity is being lost at rates unprecedented in human history. This underlines the magnitude of the challenge we face to achieve the 2010 Biodiversity Target. As demonstrated by the Assessment, biodiversity loss and decline of ecosystem services constitute a concern for human well-being, especially for that of the poorest. As discussed in Chapter 1, the poor will suffer disproportionately as a result of their direct dependence on ecosystems for their livelihoods and their inability to afford substitutes when ecosystem goods and services are degraded. This harsh reality highlights the need to spare no effort to meet the 2010 target.
While the trends elucidated by the indicators in Chapter 2 and the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment leave no room for complacency, neither do they suggest that progress towards the 2010 Biodiversity Target is impossible. Three conclusions of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are particularly pertinent in this regard:
- First, while “unprecedented additional efforts” will be needed to achieve the 2010 Biodiversity Target at national, regional and global levels, with appropriate responses at the global, regional, and, especially, the national level, it is possible to achieve, by 2010, a reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss for certain components of biodiversity or for certain indicators, and in certain regions.
- Second, the majority of the targets that the Convention has established as part of its framework for assessing progress towards the 2010 target are achievable, provided that the necessary actions are taken, as will be discussed in Section 4.1
- Third, for the most part, the tools needed to achieve the 2010 target, including programmes of work, principles and guidelines, have already been developed, as described in Chapter 3.
These conclusions should be seized upon, and should motivate Parties and civil society to act. Real progress can be made by applying the tools already available under the Convention. At the same time, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s conclusions raise new challenges for the Convention that will need to be addressed as implementation proceeds. These concern the need to address the drivers of change more directly in the Convention’s programmes of work (as discussed in section 4.2) and to fully integrate biodiversity concerns into the activities and policies of economic sectors that impact upon biodiversity (as discussed in Section 4.3).
Furthermore, on the basis of both an analysis of current trends and by exploring scenarios of plausible futures, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment projects that biodiversity loss, and in particular the loss of species diversity and transformation of habitats, is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and certainly beyond 2010. This is largely due to inertia in ecological and human systems and to the fact that the drivers of biodiversity loss are themselves broadly constant or increasing. This has implications for the long-term vision of the Convention, as expressed in the Strategic Plan, which is to halt the loss of biodiversity. Given the characteristic response times for human political and socio-economic systems, and for ecological systems, short-term goals and targets alone are not sufficient as a policy framework— longer-term goals and targets are also needed to guide policy and actions. The development of these goals and targets, undertaken as part of the review of the Strategic Plan, is envisaged to be completed by 2010.
Box 4.1 Summary of the main findings on biodiversity of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Source & ©: CBD 
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, p.57-59
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Prospects for achieving the goals and targets of the Convention’s framework for assessing progress towards the 2010 target
The framework adopted by the Conference of the Parties for assessing progress towards the 2010 Biodiversity Target includes not only indicators to assess biodiversity status and trends, but also a set of goals and targets for advancing towards the 2010 Biodiversity Target, as described earlier. It is too soon to assess progress towards these goals and targets. However, the prospects for achievement can already be analysed on the basis of current trends and through consideration of plausible future scenarios, as was done as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Prospects for achievement are better for some targets than others. The Assessment confirms that it is possible to achieve many of the targets aimed at protecting the components of biodiversity if the response options that are already incorporated into the programmes of work of the Convention on Biological Diversity are implemented. However, it appears highly unlikely that all the targets aimed at addressing threats to biodiversity could be achieved globally by 2010, although some may be achieved at smaller scales. It will also be a major challenge to meet the targets to maintain, until 2010 and also throughout the 21st century, goods and services from biodiversity to support human well-being. Table 4.1 provides an analysis of current prospects for meeting each of the framework’s targets.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment projects that biodiversity loss, and in particular the loss of species diversity and transformation of habitats, is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and certainly beyond 2010.
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.1, p.59-61
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Addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss in the Convention’s programmes of work
The magnitude of the challenge to achieve the 2010 Biodiversity Target lies in the fact that most of the direct drivers of biodiversity loss—habitat change, climate change, the introduction of invasive alien species, overexploitation and nutrient loading—are projected to either remain constant or to increase in the near future. Figure 4.1 illustrates the relative importance of these drivers for the various ecosystem types.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment finds that further progress in addressing biodiversity loss will require additional actions to address the main direct drivers of biodiversity loss. Accordingly, a few elements of the programmes of work of the Convention on Biological Diversity could be better prioritized and refocused to more squarely address drivers of biodiversity loss, as discussed in this section.
For terrestrial ecosystems, the most important direct driver of change in the past 50 years has been habitat change. Land-use change is projected to continue to be a major driver of biodiversity loss, especially due to agricultural expansion into tropical and sub-tropical forests, grasslands and savannas, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Issues of land-use change arising from agriculture may need to be addressed more directly, as discussed in Section 4.3, including in the context of the programme of work on agricultural biodiversity. There are additional pressures, especially in coastal areas, from urbanization, development of transport infrastructure and tourism, and from development of aquaculture.
Degradation in drylands is another major concern for terrestrial ecosystems and is squarely addressed by the Convention’s programme of work on the biodiversity of dry and sub-humid lands. Some 10 to 20% of drylands already suffer from a persistent reduction in their capacity to supply ecosystem services, often with significant impacts on livelihood security.
For marine ecosystems, the most important direct driver of change in the past 50 years, on the whole, has been overexploitation. Global fisheries landings peaked in the late 1980s and are now declining, despite increasing fishing effort. This fishing pressure is seriously harming marine biodiversity in many parts of the world, oft en with potentially significant impacts on food security. Some response measures identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, such as the establishment of marine protected areas, are already included in the programme of work on marine and coastal biodiversity, but must be put into practice as a matter of urgency. The programme of work also calls for activities to eliminate destructive fishing practices, and restore and maintain fisheries stocks to sustainable levels by the year 2015, but this is not a primary focus.
For freshwater ecosystems, depending on the region of the world, the most important direct drivers of change in the past 50 years are physical alteration of habitats, modification of water regimes, and reduced water quality (pollution, sedimentation and eutrophication). Such pressures are likely to intensify as demand for water continues to increase from agriculture, industry and for human consumption. The drivers of change are thus found to be largely external to inland water ecosystems, and this means that the programme of work on the biodiversity of inland waters—which addresses these drivers—must be better known, understood and implemented across many economic sectors.
Over the past four decades, nutrient loading, particularly of nitrogen and phosphorus, has emerged as one of the most important drivers of ecosystem change in terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystems. Humans now produce more reactive nitrogen than is produced by all natural pathways combined. Furthermore, nitrogen use is projected to increase by 20 to 50% globally over the next 50 years, with most of the increase occurring in Asia. Although the framework of goals, targets and indicators adopted to assess progress towards the 2010 Biodiversity Target includes targets and indicators related to the nutrient-loading issue, the problem is not fully integrated into all of the relevant programmes of work (including, notably, the programme of work on agricultural biodiversity). Addressing nutrient loading will require both the promotion of increased efficiency of nitrogen use and the conservation of wetlands to maintain or increase their capacity to filter and remove excess nutrients. Again, addressing this issue effectively will require outreach to other economic sectors.
Climate change in the past century has already had a measurable effect on biodiversity and is projected to have greater impacts in the future. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment expects that an increase in average global temperature beyond two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures will give rise to globally significant impacts on ecosystems. There is an urgent need for Parties and other Governments to address this threat, including through their commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, in order to lessen dangerous impacts on ecosystems. At the same time, activities aimed at the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity (including the development and management of protected areas) also need to fully take into account climate change. Some species and ecosystems, in some regions, may be more vulnerable to climate change and with this in mind, there is a need to develop and implement adaptation measures in all the thematic programmes of work.
Increased levels of transport, tourism and trade are associated with more frequent introductions of invasive alien species which pose a significant threat to ecosystems. Whereas the various programmes of work already consider the impacts of invasive alien species once introduced, further work is needed to strengthen preventative measures.
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.2, p.62-64
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Mainstreaming biodiversity into economic sectors and development planning
The Convention calls for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity to be integrated, as far as is possible and appropriate, into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies. This imperative, also highlighted in the Strategic Plan, is reinforced by the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. As discussed above, a significant and sustained reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss can only be achieved if the main drivers of change are addressed. To do so, it is necessary to engage with key actors in the main economic sectors that give rise to the drivers of change so that negative impacts can be reduced or mitigated. Engaging the principal actors in these sectors and recruiting allies as advocates for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is also needed to ensure wider awareness of biodiversity issues. With wider awareness will come the increased political will and additional resources necessary for change. This transformation represents the essence of mainstreaming biodiversity across economic sectors.
In this section, we outline priority issues for engaging with the key economic sector of food and agriculture, as well as with the trade, and poverty and development sectors. Integrating biodiversity concerns into the food and agriculture sector is particularly important to conservation and sustainable use efforts, as is integration into the energy sector (Figure 4.2). Energy use contributes to biodiversity loss through climate change that, as noted in Section 4.2, is becoming an increasingly significant driver of biodiversity loss. The main efforts at reducing this threat are carried out under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, however, and are discussed only briefly here. In terms of the food and agriculture sector, agriculture is the main driver of land-use change, as well as the main source of excessive reactive nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients in ecosystems. The overexploitation of wild foods, particularly marine fishes but also bushmeat, is another major driver of biodiversity loss.
Since economic development—including growth in the energy and food and agriculture sectors—is strongly affected by policies on trade, there is a need to integrate biodiversity concerns into trade discussions. In addition, there are important linkages between biodiversity and poverty reduction. Just as the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services could undermine achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, many of the actions that could be implemented most quickly to promote economic development and reduce hunger and poverty could harm biodiversity, at least in the short-run. Given these complex interrelations, there is a need to integrate biodiversity consideration in polices, plans and programmes for sustainable development.
The analysis in this section is based on the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concerning the present and future drivers of biodiversity loss and is informed by the scenarios of plausible futures examined under the Assessment (see Figure 4.4). The analysis also draws upon an additional set of scenarios developed for the Convention by the GLOBIO Consortium (Box 4.2).
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.3, p.64-65.
The source document for this Digest states:
As noted above, biodiversity issues related to energy use and attendant climate change will only be briefly outlined here. The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity can contribute to measures both to mitigate climate change (i.e., reducing greenhouse gas concentrations) and to adapt to climate change (i.e., reducing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human well-being). Conversely, climate change mitigation and adaptation activities can have positive or negative impacts on biodiversity, depending on the response options chosen. For instance, maintaining natural forests for carbon storage has a greater benefit for biodiversity than planting single-species tree stands. Integration of biodiversity concerns into climate change policy is therefore very important. An assessment of these interlinkages has been carried out under the auspices of the Convention and provides guidance to policy-makers on these matters.
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.3, p.65.
The source document for this Digest states:
According to the various scenarios of plausible futures explored in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, land-use change is expected to remain the largest driver of biodiversity loss to 2010 and indeed at least until the middle of this century (see Figure 4.3).
While other factors are important, especially in coastal areas, the biggest driver of land-use change is agriculture. Expansion of agriculture is driven by increasing demand for food, which in turn is driven by increasing population and increases in per capita consumption associated with rising income, urbanization and changing food preferences. Whereas the size of the increase is susceptible to policy change, technological advances and personal preferences (as discussed below), a substantial rise in the demand for food is nonetheless inevitable and an essential element of most strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Efforts under the Convention must therefore be focused on minimizing the impact of these changes on biodiversity. There are three broad elements to such an approach:
First, there is a need to limit the expansion of land under cultivation by improving the efficiency of food production. Increased efficiency can be achieved by increasing agricultural productivity and by reducing post-harvest losses. To avoid other negative impacts, however, such measures must be coupled with soil conservation efforts and improved efficiency of water and nutrient use. These improvements can be achieved by promoting technological change, by building upon farmers’ knowledge and extending existing best practice. Examples include promoting integrated pest management, low-till cultivation, targeted use of nutrients, and improvements in irrigation. Together, these approaches can contribute to what is oft en termed “sustainable intensification” of agriculture. The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in agro-ecosystems has itself a role to play in this regard, in line with the Convention’s programme of work on agricultural biodiversity. A number of international and non-governmental organizations and private sector companies have already developed good agricultural practice guidelines that are useful tools for promoting best practice. Additionally, some existing certification and labeling schemes require particular standards of practice.
Second, effective landscape-level planning is required to ensure that any necessary expansion of agriculture, including for cash crops, plantations and aquaculture, occurs primarily on land that is already converted (including degraded lands) rather than in areas of high biodiversity value, or land otherwise important for the delivery of vital ecosystem goods and services. Protected areas can be used to ensure conservation of the sites most important to biodiversity, but a wider landscape-level approach is also needed. The Convention’s Ecosystem Approach provides important principles and operational guidance for implementation of such a landscape-level planning process. Environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment are also important tools to this end, and the Convention has developed guidelines for incorporating biodiversity-related issues into these approaches. In addition, purchasers and processors of agricultural commodities increasingly require assurances that production is not promoting deforestation or other conversion of natural habitats and are forming partnerships with producers and civil society organizations to develop criteria for this purpose. The Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil is an example of such a partnership: the criteria for sustainability under this scheme include no conversion of primary forest to oil palm plantations after November 2005.
Third, efforts could be made to moderate increases in overall demand for food by reducing excessive consumption, especially of meat, by more affluent sectors of society. While increases in consumption are desirable for poorer, less well-nourished sectors of society (and are, in fact, necessary to reach the health and nutrition targets of the Millennium Development Goals), reduction in consumption among the better off could have both health benefits and environmental benefits. Scenarios developed for the Convention by the GLOBIO Consortium (see Box 4.2) demonstrate that more sustainable meat production methods, coupled with a moderate reduction in meat consumption by the more affluent sectors of society, could contribute to a reduction in biodiversity loss. Increased public awareness of, and education on, the importance of biodiversity, the impacts of unsustainable consumption and production patterns, and the health benefits of a moderate and diverse diet, are probably the main tools to achieve progress in this area.
Box 4.2 Policy options for the 2010 Biodiversity Target and beyond
Beyond land-use change, overfishing is an important additional cause of biodiversity loss associated with food production, especially in marine areas. Urgent measures are needed to stop overfishing, especially by industrial-scale operations, to prohibit destructive fishing practices, and to end illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. These measures should be complemented by the establishment of a network of marine protected areas using the Ecosystem Approach, in line with the Convention’s programme of work on marine and coastal biodiversity and commitments of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Conserving the marine environment and important fish stocks would also protect vital resources for the poor.
Maintenance of critical biodiversity and ecosystems at the local level can yield benefits beyond the boundaries of the ecosystem in question and thereby contribute more generally to reducing the loss of biodiversity arising from food harvesting and agricultural production activities. Wetlands, including swamps, marshes, river beds and coastal areas, for example, are all important in contributing to the removal of excess reactive nitrogen and other nutrients derived from agricultural activities, thereby protecting downstream ecosystems from eutrophication. Coral reefs and mangroves provide spawning grounds for food fisheries, while also protecting coastlines from extreme weather events. These are all examples of healthy ecosystems providing resilience, a property of ecosystems that will become increasingly important in the future due to rising pressures from climate change, the increased release of nutrients from agriculture and increased human population densities.
Protection of critical ecosystems is one key component of an overall strategy to reduce biodiversity loss (Box 4.3). As discussed above, such a strategy must also include improving agricultural efficiency, developing landscape management plans, and reducing overfishing. To implement these approaches, a mix of planning, regulations and incentive measures will be required. Improved public understanding and better valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services will also be an important part of the necessary actions.
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.3, p.65-68.
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The relationship between biodiversity and trade is complex. On the one hand, increased trade associated with globalization may increase pressures on biodiversity through, among other things, an increased risk of the introduction of invasive alien species, and through increasing demand for timber, food and commodities, the production of which are linked to biodiversity loss. On the other hand, economic efficiency gains associated with free trade will enhance resource use efficiency, and may thereby reduce the impact on biodiversity associated with the production of a given quantity of produce. Moreover, a number of disciplines associated with trade liberalization aim to reduce subsidies that are thought to lead to overproduction. Hence, a number of commitments under the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization have the potential to benefit biodiversity. These include the removal of subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overproduction in agriculture. Economic efficiency gains notwithstanding, however, scenarios developed for the Convention by members of the GLOBIO Consortium indicate that trade liberalization according to the Doha Commitments will likely lead, in the short-term, to an acceleration in the rate of biodiversity loss in some regions and countries, unless accompanied by proactive measures to conserve biodiversity. This is because liberalization is generally expected to shift agricultural production from the United States, Japan and Europe, where yields are relatively high, to Latin America and Southern Africa, potentially resulting in greater total land requirements at the expense of forest and grassland areas.
At the national level, a proactive approach to incorporating biodiversity considerations in cross-sectoral and landscape-level policy planning is clearly necessary to accompany trade liberalization. Incentive measures will also have a role to play. Sustainability assessments of trade liberalization measures are a useful tool to inform policy development in this regard.
At the international level, a supportive trade regime is necessary to allow for, and indeed to encourage, the development and use of appropriate incentive measures. Further, it is important that the global trade regime more generally recognize the value of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other multilateral environmental agreements for achieving sustainable development. The princeples of these agreements need to be duly taken into account when further developing the trade regime. In particular, when reducing trade-distorting (production-related) subsidies—which tend to be bad for biodiversity as well—it is important to keep a window for the application of well-designed and targeted measures to safeguard the provision of important ecosystem services.
Completion of the Doha Development Round under the World Trade Organization, in particular the removal of harmful subsidies in fisheries and agriculture, accompanied by appropriate planning and incentive measures at the national level, could thus generate synergy with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity while also contributing to the broader development agenda, including the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Box 4.3 Elements of a strategy to reduce biodiversity loss
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.3, p.68-69.
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The two great challenges of the 21st century—to eradicate poverty and to protect biodiversity—are reflected in the Millennium Development Goals and the 2010 Biodiversity Target. Between the two, however, poverty eradication, and associated economic and social development, is the first and overriding priority of developing countries, as recognized in the preamble to the Convention. Generally, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use are given less political weight than policies and actions to promote development and combat poverty. As discussed in Chapter 3, the result is that biodiversity is usually not reflected in national development plans. As a consequence, biodiversity concerns are not effectively mainstreamed across relevant sectors, opportunities for biodiversity to contribute to poverty eradication are oft en missed, and there are little funds or human resources devoted to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.
There is increasing evidence that the above approach is short-sighted. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment finds that, of 24 ecosystem services examined, 15 are in decline, and that it is usually the poor who suffer most from this loss. As the Assessment concludes, the widespread decline in biodiversity and ecosystem services may undermine progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
At the same time, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment notes potential tradeoffs between development and biodiversity goals: some measures that promote short-term development may undermine the resource base on which sustained development progress rests. There is no simple relationship between progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and biodiversity conservation. In the range of plausible future scenarios examined in the Assessment, the scenario that showed the most progress towards reducing hunger and poverty entailed relatively high losses of biodiversity, and those scenarios that were more favourable from a biodiversity perspective made smaller advances towards the development goal (see Figure 4.4).
Moreover, future scenarios developed for the Convention by members of the GLOBIO Consortium (Box 4.2) show that actions taken to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty are likely to accelerate biodiversity loss in the short-run, unless proactive mitigating measures are put in place. This is largely because expansion of agriculture contributes to both economic development and an improved food supply but tends to have negative implications for biodiversity, further underlining the importance of integrating biodiversity concerns in landscape planning processes.
Indeed, as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concludes, coordinated implementation of the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Millennium Development Goals would facilitate the consideration of the trade-offs and synergies between the two sets of goals, so that informed decisions can be made. Such an approach is consistent with the decision of the Conference of the Parties at its seventh meeting in Kuala Lumpur, in which Parties, Governments, international financial institutions, donors, and relevant intergovernmental organizations are urged to implement development activities in ways that are consistent with, and do not compromise, the achievement of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2010 target.
The existence of trade-offs and synergies implies that environmental considerations, including those related to biodiversity, should be integrated into the implementation not only of the environmental sustainability goal of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG 7), but of all the relevant goals, including those to eliminate poverty and hunger (MDG 1), and to improve human health(MDGs 4 through 6). In turn, this highlights the urgent need for countries to integrate biodiversity concerns into strategies for poverty reduction and sustainable development, including the Millennium Development Goal strategies and Poverty Reduction Strategies.
Elements of an approach that involves integration of biodiversity into strategies for poverty reduction and sustainable development should include:
- Recognition of the value of biodiversity in providing ecosystem goods and services, in particular goods and services of value to the poor, including those not traded in markets;
- Protection, in particular, of biodiversity of value to the poor, including common pool resources. Protection might involve the use of environmental assessment approaches that are sensitive to the perspectives and needs of the poor, in order to prevent the types of ecosystem changes highlighted in Chapter 1 (Figure 1.2);
- Respect for the traditional rights and practices of indigenous and local communities that contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity; extending property and resource rights to local communities and promoting community-based natural resource management as appropriate;
- Creation of pro-poor markets for ecosystem services at all appropriate levels.
Examples of pro-poor biodiversity conservation measures include: protecting coral reefs and mangroves that support important fisheries and protect shorelines; preventing the depletion of artisanal fisheries by large-scale commercial fishing operations; and protection of wild food of high nutritional value in forests and agricultural landscapes.
As noted by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, there is substantial scope for greater protection of biodiversity through actions justified on their economic merits, where the concept of economic value goes beyond conventional, narrow definitions to include material or other benefits to human well-being. Realizing this potential requires making greater efforts towards understanding and computing the total value of biodiversity, its components, and its role in providing ecosystem services, together with the enhanced use of the resulting information and understanding in decision-making. This observation underscores the more general requirement to pay increased attention in the work of the Convention to socio-economic issues and analysis, including biodiversity valuation and the promotion of markets for ecosystem services. Care should be taken so that responses to address biodiversity conservation and sustainable use do not further marginalize the world’s poor and instead, wherever feasible, generate synergy with the Millennium Development Goals.
As discussed in this chapter, meeting the 2010 target is a considerable, but by no means impossible, challenge. Unprecedented additional efforts are needed, and these must be focused on addressing the main drivers of biodiversity loss. The Convention already provides a toolkit that, with minimal adjustments, can guide action at the global, regional and national level. For the best possible outcomes to be achieved, however, these tools must be put to immediate and widespread use in those sectors that give rise to the drivers of biodiversity loss. Many opportunities exist for mainstreaming biodiversity, as outlined above, but seizing these will depend on taking effective action at the national level.
Source & ©: CBD
Chapter 4: Prospects and Challenges for achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target, Section 4.3, p.69-71.
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