In November of this year, governments from around the world will meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the UN Biodiversity Conference.
At this crucial meeting, delegates will discuss enhanced actions needed to protect the biodiversity that underpins sustainable development and life on Earth. They will also agree on the shape of the negotiations that will lead, in 2020, to a new Global Deal for Nature – the post-2020 framework for biodiversity.
Biodiversity and the essential services that nature provides are essential for life on Earth. Biodiversity is the basis of our food, medicines, fuel and livelihoods. It is the source of our cultural and spiritual enrichment. By conserving, restoring and sustainably using biodiversity, we ensure that we have viable solutions to present and future challenges, including climate change, water scarcity, food security, sustainable development, and peace and security.
Protected biodiversity can help mitigate climate change and provide increased resilience to communities in the face of disasters. Water quality and availability is ensured by well-functioning ecosystems – forests, grasslands, soils, rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, aquifers, estuaries and coastal waters. In so many ways, the sound management of biodiversity and ecosystem services is the basis for economic and social development and thus contribute to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The UN Biodiversity Conference, scheduled to take place in Egypt in November, is a unique opportunity for the global community to lay the groundwork for action on biodiversity over the next ten years. Governments will agree on the process of developing the successor to the current global framework for biodiversity – the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.
At the conference in November, governments must send a clear message that safeguarding biodiversity and the health of the planetary ecosystems is fundamental to our survival and the social and economic well-being of everybody, everywhere.
As we move towards 2050, it is important that we all speak with one voice on nature, in alignment with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on climate change, backed by science-based targets for an ambitious strategy to catalyze change. No single body alone can address the challenges that lie ahead in achieving the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. By its very nature, biodiversity is cross-cutting, and we need the full engagement of all multilateral environmental agreements and indeed all stakeholders.
As noted by the Japanese writer Ryunosuke Satoro: “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”
Original source: UN Environment
Published on 12 September 2018
