The SDC magazine for
development and cooperation
DEZA
Text: Samuel SchlaefliIssue: 01/2023

The diversity of species and ecosystems on our planet is declining rapidly. For over 30 years, the world's nations have been trying to halt the progressive destruction of the environment through multilateral cooperation. But so far, they have met with little success. A new global framework containing clear-cut goals and indicators aims to revitalise efforts to protect and restore biodiversity. This could also be key to delivering the 2030 Agenda and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Smouldering forest and peatland next to a palm oil plantation in Kamipang, Indonesia, September 2019: studies show that forest fragmentation increases the likelihood of viruses and other pathogens jumping from wildlife to humans.  © Ulet Ifansasti/NYT/Redux/laif
Smouldering forest and peatland next to a palm oil plantation in Kamipang, Indonesia, September 2019: studies show that forest fragmentation increases the likelihood of viruses and other pathogens jumping from wildlife to humans. © Ulet Ifansasti/NYT/Redux/laif

The Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity – and the signs are not good. The IUCN has assessed 147,500 species of animals, fungi and plants, more than 41,000 of which are currently at risk of extinction.

"It's normal for some species to disappear," says Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General. "Our planet is not a museum; it is constantly changing. But species are currently vanishing at a rate 100 to 1,000 times faster than in the past hundred years." This is leading to the collapse of entire ecosystems, with examples including the lack of pollination affecting New Zealand's fruit trees due to the decline in its bee population, or the desertification of parts of Africa and China. Oberle compares ecosystems with the internet: "Individual connections can break down without causing a complete system failure. But at a certain point, the entire system will crash."

We still don't know exactly where these tipping points, at which negative feedback loops are triggered, accelerating destruction uncontrollably, lie ‒ even less so than in the case of the climate crisis. "The drastic decline in biodiversity is probably an even greater threat to humanity than climate change," says Oberle. "It's just that most of us aren't directly aware of it yet." However, the forecasts are alarming: in a 2019 report, the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) stated that up to one million animal and plant species are facing extinction, and many could be lost forever in the coming decades.

Ecosystem destruction is leading to poverty

The reasons for the current mass extinction are obvious: the destruction of biodiversity doesn't usually come with a price attached. That's why we're using one-and-a-half planet's worth of resources worldwide. If everyone consumed as much as the Swiss, we would need as many as three planets. As with climate change, the repercussions of the biodiversity crisis are unevenly spread. Poor households, smallholder farmers and indigenous groups in the Global South are affected most – even though they use the fewest resources.

Development experts are therefore broadly in agreement: without effective biodiversity conservation, the 2030 Agenda's 17 Sustainable Development Goals will not be achievable. Most depend directly on a healthy environment, whereas ecosystem destruction is leading to poverty and inequality.

Concern about biodiversity decline is nothing new at the UN level. At the major summit on the environment and development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was launched alongside the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The latter is the most important multilateral treaty dedicated to conserving biodiversity.

To date, 196 states have become a party to the convention, including Switzerland. Although the United States has signed the convention, it has never ratified it and merely holds observer status. The parties undertake to conserve biodiversity in their own countries, to facilitate equitable access to and use of genetic resources, and to take measures for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

Global objective with limited impact

The target of achieving a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 was set in April 2002. This proved ineffective, and so a global strategic plan for biodiversity covering the period 2011 to 2020 was adopted in Nagoya in October 2010. The 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets were a key element of this framework. The goals included protecting the forests, keeping the use of resources within limits and setting up new protected areas. Harmful subsidies were to be reduced, and biodiversity targets integrated into national and local development and poverty reduction measures. As a result, the Federal Council adopted Switzerland's first national biodiversity strategy in 2012, subsequently detailing specific measures to implement the strategy in a 2017 action plan.

The 2020 Global Biodiversity Outlook publication analysed the progress towards achieving the Aichi targets. It came to a sobering conclusion: none of the 20 targets have been fully achieved at the global level, and only 6 targets have been partially achieved. In addition, only 23% of the national targets are well aligned with the Aichi targets in terms of their level of ambition and scope. Consequently, a new global biodiversity framework was negotiated at the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal in December 2022 (see box on COP 15), with the overall aim of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2030 and ensuring we are 'living in harmony with nature' by 2050.

Breakthrough at the COP15 Biodiversity Conference

The outcome document of the Biodiversity Conference held in Montreal from 7 to 19 December 2022 has been hailed as a significant breakthrough by politicians, civil society and environmental protection associations. In the agreement, 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed on a new framework with 23 goals, including the conservation of 30% of land and marine areas for biodiversity by 2030. The protection of the rights of indigenous groups is mentioned several times and their central role in the protection of biodiversity is underscored. The agreement also provides for the removal of environmentally harmful subsidies, especially in agriculture. In future, large transnational companies will have to report their own impacts on biodiversity and business risks due to biodiversity loss. A fund is to be created for the commercial use of digital sequence information on genetic resources, through which states with high biodiversity, especially in the Global South, will be compensated. However, there was also criticism: the delegation of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, accused the Chinese conference leadership of rushing the agreement through despite objections and without their consent.

A challenge for Switzerland too

"The Aichi targets were good, but they failed to achieve the desired effect due to poor implementation," says Niklaus Wagner, a policy advisor in the Rio Conventions section of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). "The new targets need to have uniform indicators for measuring their impact, and improved reporting and monitoring of implementation." He believes that new biodiversity targets are particularly effective when paired with meaningful indicators, and that the two elements must therefore be negotiated jointly.

Cultivating beans instead of potato monocultures promotes biodiversity and a healthy diet while lessening the dependence on imports: Aisha Sow, who works for an agricultural cooperative, checking the quality of a farmer's bean harvest in Senegal.  © Jason Florio/Redux/laif
Cultivating beans instead of potato monocultures promotes biodiversity and a healthy diet while lessening the dependence on imports: Aisha Sow, who works for an agricultural cooperative, checking the quality of a farmer's bean harvest in Senegal. © Jason Florio/Redux/laif

Wagner considers the '30 by 30' target and its measurable outcomes to be an important cornerstone of the new framework. The target requires 30% of global land and sea areas to be conserved for biodiversity by 2030; measures to achieve this include setting aside protected areas, restoring rivers and keeping migratory corridors that connect the habitats of wild animals open.

Designing this green infrastructure is also a challenge for Switzerland. At present, designated biodiversity conservation areas cover 13.4% of its territory. Trade-offs are inevitable given that placing large areas under protection in order to promote biodiversity means intensive agriculture can no longer be practised there. Some countries argue that this runs contrary to the idea of food security. For their part, civil society organisations are critical of the 30 by 30 target, believing it could adversely affect the indigenous groups living in the areas that are to be set aside to achieve the target.

Bumpy road to agricultural biodiversity

Agriculture and the global food system play a key role in protecting biodiversity. Human food production is directly linked to 70% of biodiversity loss. Thirty-three per cent of the world's topsoil has now been degraded, mainly due to the Green Revolution and agricultural practices based on the excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides. Agriculture is responsible for 80% of global deforestation.

That's why several Aichi targets dealt explicitly with the transformation of agriculture. However, we are still waiting for this to happen today. "Ideas about intensifying agricultural uses on certain areas of land in order to 'retire' and protect others continue to be bandied around. We consider this to be unsustainable and socially unfair," says Simon Degelo, who oversees Seed Policy and Biodiversity at Swiss NGO Swissaid. "Biodiversity within agriculture should be preserved and promoted instead."

That is why Swissaid is committed to agroecological practices in its development projects. "Monocultures, which are often based on hybrid grains that require a lot of fertiliser and other chemical inputs, are not only an environmental risk, but also an economic one," says Degelo. In a monoculture, a single pest can wipe out the entire crop. "Diversity in agriculture strengthens resilience – including against climate shocks."

Development cooperation and biodiversity targets

This is illustrated by a project in Boyacá, north-eastern Colombia, which is supported by the SDC and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a global fund for nature conservation. Agricultural production has seen a dramatic decline there in recent years after intensive potato cultivation led to reduced soil fertility and the increasing use of fertilisers and pesticides. As a result, people sought to make a living in the coal mines that were set up illegally in the protected area.

A Colombian smallholder family displaying their diverse harvest. © Swissaid Columbia
A Colombian smallholder family displaying their diverse harvest. © Swissaid Columbia

Swissaid helped farmers in six municipalities grow traditional plant varieties and conserve biodiversity in the region through sustainable grazing. Potato monocultures have now given way to maize, wheat, quinoa, beans, peas, lentils and cabbages. As well as promoting crop diversity, this also encourages a healthy diet and lessens the dependence on imports. For Degelo, this is a good example of how development cooperation can make a very real contribution to the achievement of biodiversity targets.

Swissaid also supports the establishment of agricultural seed banks and seed networks in the Global South. "Agricultural diversity cannot be achieved without a wide variety of seeds," says Degelo. "Farmers must have a choice, but in many countries today they no longer do." Through patenting, seed companies are increasingly privatising genetic resources, especially where patents also cover conventionally-bred varieties.

According to Degelo, countries of the Global South in particular frequently give in to pressure from developed countries and the seed industry, and introduce strict seed laws that push the traditionally farmed seeds out of the market. In negotiating a new biodiversity framework therefore, the right of farmers to freely use their seeds must also be protected.

Another controversial topic is that of access and benefit-sharing (ABS), in other words the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources – such as a medicinal plant used to develop medicines. The Nagoya Protocol, which is part of the CBD mechanism, states that companies, research institutes and countries should negotiate a fair and equitable arrangement on a bilateral basis. In practice, however, this is proving difficult and, according to Degelo, there has been virtually no flow of monetary benefits to the countries of origin of genetic resources thus far.

Developing countries also fear that digitalisation could exacerbate the unequal sharing of profits from genetic resources in the future. Because, at present, once the digital sequence of a plant's genetic material has been stored in a database, that plant's properties can be researched and commercialised. To what extent the Nagoya Protocol rules governing the use of physical genetic resources can be extended to include digital sequence information is a question on which national views differ widely. It is important to Switzerland that there are no obstacles to accessing this information for research and future innovation purposes, says Niklaus Wagner of the FOEN. "Through its involvement in the negotiations, Switzerland is actively seeking practical solutions that also take account of the needs of developing countries."

Billions for biodiversity conservation

One question the international negotiations leave largely unanswered is that of financing. How much are individual states responsible for the biodiversity crisis, and to what extent do they contribute to the financing of protection measures? In 2021, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) calculated that a total investment of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050 in order to successfully tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises.

Sustainable grazing, as seen here on the Umzimvubu River in South Africa, conserves biodiversity.  © Obie Oberholzer/laif
Sustainable grazing, as seen here on the Umzimvubu River in South Africa, conserves biodiversity. © Obie Oberholzer/laif

"That sounds like a lot," says IUCN Director General Bruno Oberle, "but it's only a few per cent of the global gross national product." Moreover, 'business as usual', in which biodiversity continues to be lost at the present rate, would have a much higher cost for humanity. About half of the world's gross national product is directly dependent on healthy biodiversity. For example, food production depends on pollinators such as bees. If they are lost, there will be no more crops and yields.

According to Oberle, everyone must contribute to the approximately USD 700 billion needed to protect biodiversity alone: nation states, the business world, development agencies and foundations. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), which was set up by the World Bank to support environmental projects in developing countries and whose replenishment is important to the countries of the Global South, will be part of the solution, but the funds it provides will be far from sufficient.

Oberle sees national public finances as the greatest source of leverage: "at present, subsidies of USD 600 to 700 billion are being paid annually for practices that are harmful to biodiversity." They are used to finance chemical fertilisers or support meat production. Oberle is convinced that "if these funds were to be channelled into regenerative practices to build back biodiversity, then we could achieve the global biodiversity targets – despite the enormous challenges."

Come with us. From April 2024, you will find all the stories about Swiss humanitarian aid and international cooperation at sdc.admin.ch/stories.

We look forward to your visit.
Further Information
We are moving.