Biodiversity Day 2022: Five Points of Optimism towards a Shared Future for all Life

The other day marked Biodiversity Day 2022, to recognise the important role that biodiversity in nature plays across all facets of life. This year’s theme was “Building a shared future for all life”.

The day marks the adoption of the text of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Nairobi in 1992. According to the UN definition, biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth and the natural patterns it forms. The intricate and inextricable links between Nature, Climate Change, Social and Economic development are becoming increasingly evident as we seek to acknowledge, measure and improve our understanding of a broad range of interdependencies through global frameworks that focus our attention on many matters hitherto considered economic externalities.

Threats to our natural environment

Science.org published an article in 2011 highlighting that there are 8.7 million species on Earth of which 1.2 million have been identified and classified. 86% of the species identified live on land, with the remainder being marine or subsurface.

There have been 5 previous extinctions all of which were from natural phenomenon, whereas the current extinction risk to threatened species is primarily anthropogenic (caused by humans) and climate change is a key part of this. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species numbers 10,967 (and includes well-loved animals such as the giant panda and koala) with increases largely resulting from the 1 degree rise in global temperatures over the past 150 years. The Living Planet Index by Our World in Data identifies a 68% average decline in wildlife since 1970. There are also changes within species including ecological, physiological, genetic and behavioural patterns, all of which threaten to create further imbalance.

Why this matters

Among other outcomes, changes in Earth’s biodiversity patterns have spiralling impacts including:

a. altering our food chains

b. destroying habitats

c. reducing carbon sinks.

Some points of optimism

The mammoth scale and speed of world-wide efforts required to reverse and halt further destruction of biodiversity are categorically unquestionable. As a global society, we have, however, started to take some positive steps. I have summarised five developments below, which are among the factors that provide some optimism in society’s quest to tackle the biodiversity challenge:

1.      Common Parlance

Biodiversity is now part of the common parlance in sustainability and climate change discussions and work programs. Google Trends data highlights that searches for the term ‘biodiversity’ increased by over 185% over the past 5 years across the globe, with developing countries in Asia and Africa among the top 5 regions searching this term. This provides some hope regarding the broader awareness of this important topic.

2.      COP 26 Commitment

At COP 26 in Glasgow last year, 141 participating countries which cover 91% of the world’s forests committed to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.

3.      COP 15 for Biodiversity and Nature

The second part of COP15 takes place in Kunming, China in October 2022 where goals for nature will seek to secure a commitment to ‘Living in Harmony with Nature by 2050’ from its participating member countries.

4.     Recognition of the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities

In the lead up to COP15 Kunming, biodiversity talks in Geneva earlier this year recognised the important role of indigenous peoples and local communities by proposing to secure their land and water rights by 2025. Nature Magazine notes that while the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples make up less than five percent of the total human population, they manage or hold tenure over 25 percent of the world’s land surface and support 80% of global biodiversity.

5.      Taskforce for Nature-related and Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

TNFD is a market-led, science-based global body with carriage for creating a global risk management and disclosure framework for measuring an organisation’s dependencies and impacts on Nature. TNFD released its Beta v0.1 version framework in March 2022 across 4 realms – land, ocean, freshwater and atmosphere, providing measurement approaches including vegetation condition and mean species abundance. 

What we can do now

A framework for time-phased action towards Biodiversity Improvement could broadly include: Improve Awareness > Identify and Measure Dependency and Impact > Prioritise and Commit Action > Report Action > Implement Improvement.

A potential first step towards this could be to consider and commit to one or more of the 22 actions for biodiversity identified by the UN in their Biodiversity Day program (links below under 'Global action').

For more information, contact Yatra Forudi at yforudi@renniepartners.com.au