Five Steps to Inject Transformative Change into the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

Ray

2021

Global Change Biology

Global commitments to protected area expansion should prioritize opportunities to protect climate refugia and ecosystems which store high levels of irrecoverable carbon, as key components of an effective response to biodiversity loss and climate change. The United States and Canada are responsible for one‐sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions but hold extensive natural ecosystems that store globally significant above‐ and below‐ground carbon. Canada has initiated a process of protected area network expansion in concert with efforts at reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and acknowledged nature‐based solutions as a key aspect of climate change mitigation. The US, although not a party to global biodiversity conventions, has recently committed to protecting 30% of its extent by 2030 and achieving the UNFCCC Paris Agreement's mitigation targets. The opportunities afforded by these dual biodiversity conservation and climate commitments require coordinated national and regional policies to ensure that new protected areas maximize biodiversity‐focused adaptation and nature‐based mitigation opportunities. We address how global commitments can best inform national policy initiatives which build on existing agency mandates for regional planning and species conservation. Previous analyses of global conservation priorities under climate change have been tenuously linked to policy contexts of individual nations and have lacked information on refugia due to limitations of globally available datasets. Comparison and synthesis of predictions from a range of recently developed refugia metrics allow such data to inform planning despite substantial uncertainty arising from contrasting model assumptions and inputs. A case study for endangered species planning for old‐forest‐associated species in the US Pacific Northwest demonstrates how regional planning can be nested hierarchically within national biodiversity‐focused adaptation and nature‐based mitigation strategies which integrate refugia, connectivity, and ecosystem carbon metrics to holistically evaluate the role of different land designations and where carbon mitigation and protection of biodiversity's resilience to climate change can be aligned.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maximizing the effectiveness of national commitments to protected area expansion for conserving biodiversity and ecosystem carbon under climate change

Ray

2021

Global Change Biology

“…The transformative change required to respond effectively to the biodiversity and climate crises is a complex societal process through which values and science impel targets and resultant actions (Grumbine & Xu, 2021;No'kmaq et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How percentage‐protected targets can support positive biodiversity outcomes

Noss

2022

Conservation Biology

Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increasing prominence, but both their scientific basis and likely effectiveness have been questioned. As with emissions‐reduction targets based on desired climate outcomes, percentage‐protected targets combine values and science by estimating the area over which conservation actions are required to help achieve desired biodiversity outcomes. Protected areas are essential for achieving many biodiversity targets, in part because many species are highly sensitive to human‐associated disturbance. However, because the contribution of protected areas to biodiversity outcomes is contingent on their location, management, governance, threats, and what occurs across the broader landscape matrix, global percentage‐protected targets are unavoidably empirical generalizations of ecological patterns and processes across diverse geographies. Percentage‐protected targets are insufficient in isolation but can complement other actions and contribute to biodiversity outcomes within a framework that balances accuracy and pragmatism in a global context characterized by imperfect biodiversity data. Ideally, percentage‐protected targets serve as anchors that strengthen comprehensive national biodiversity strategies by communicating the level of ambition necessary to reverse current trends of biodiversity loss. If such targets are to fulfill this role within the complex societal process by which both values and science impel conservation actions, conservation scientists must clearly communicate the nature of the evidence base supporting percentage‐protected targets and how protected areas can function within a broader landscape managed for sustainable coexistence between people and nature. A new paradigm for protected and conserved areas recognizes that national coordination, incentives, and monitoring should support rather than undermine diverse locally led conservation initiatives. However, the definition of a conserved area must retain a strong focus on biodiversity to remain consistent with the evidence base from which percentage‐protected targets were originally derived.

“…Consideration of biodiversity must be mainstreamed across agencies to create a whole of government response acting in concert with a broader societal transformation toward membership in, rather than dominance over, the biotic community (Leopold, 1949). In this effort, coherent scienceinformed policies such as we propose here are a necessary foundation but will not be sufficient in themselves in achieving effective conservation outcomes absent transformative social change (Leclère et al, 2020;Grumbine and Xu, 2021;Priyadarshini et al, 2022).…”

Section: Conclusion: Achievability Of the Gbf's Goals In The Context ...mentioning

confidence: 96%

Mainstreaming the Ambition, Coherence, and Comprehensiveness of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework Into Conservation Policy

Rohlf²,

Epstein

2022

Front. Conserv. Sci.

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are finalizing a new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to more effectively guide efforts by the world’s nations to address global loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Each party is required to mainstream the new framework and its component targets into national conservation strategies. To date, such strategies have been criticized as largely aspirational and lacking clear linkages to national policy mechanisms, which has contributed to the world’s general failure to meet the Convention’s previous targets. We use the United States and European Union as examples to compare and contrast opportunities and barriers for mainstreaming the GBF more effectively into policy. The European Union and United States have unique relationships to the Convention, the former being the only supranational party and the latter, having signed but never ratified the treaty, adopting Convention targets on an ad hoc basis. The contrasting conservation policy frameworks of these two polities illustrate several conceptual issues central to biodiversity conservation and demonstrate how insights from the GBF can strengthen biodiversity policy even in atypical contexts. We focus on three characteristics of the GBF which are essential if policy is to effectively motivate and guide efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss: comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition. Statutes in both the United States and European Union provide a strong foundation for mainstreaming the GBF’s comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition, but policy development and implementation falls short. We identify six common themes among the reforms needed to successfully achieve targets for reversing biodiversity loss: broadening conservation focus to all levels of biodiversity, better coordinating conservation strategies that protect sites and landscapes with those focused on biodiversity elements (e.g., species), coordinating biodiversity conservation with efforts to safeguard ecosystem services including ecosystem-based climate mitigation and adaptation, more coherent scaling of targets from global to local extents, adoption of a more ambitious vision for recovery of biodiversity, and development of effective tracking and accountability mechanisms.