Walking the walk on global biodiversity commitments
COP16 will be an important next step for the health of the global ocean
October 24, 2024 | 5 min. read
There has been no bigger win for biodiversity than the historic global agreement that was adopted by 196 countries at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in December 2022.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets out an ambitious roadmap to halt biodiversity loss and put nature on a path to recovery.
The framework lays out 23 targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, achieve full recovery for nature by 2050, and a commitment to protect 30 percent of lands and oceans by 2030 (“30 by 30”). It also includes four overarching goals for a sustainable relationship with nature.
As the world prepares to gather once again at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Columbia (COP 16), it’s worth taking stock of what’s been accomplished since Montreal.
At COP15, Canada committed to creating a national strategy to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. In June, the federal government released its 2030 National Biodiversity Strategy, which sets out how Canada plans to implement the GBF and includes a strong focus on Indigenous-led conservation.
Thanks to the efforts of a group of NGOs that worked together to ensure the ocean stayed on the agenda, ecosystem-based management of fisheries is embedded in the biodiversity strategy.
“We were very focused on the aquatic ecosystem elements because what happens sometimes in Canada is that we forget about the ocean,” says Susanna Fuller, vice-president of conservation and projects at Oceans North.
“For example, we’ve struggled for a long time to make the linkages between fisheries management and biodiversity protection. Now, in a way that has never been done before, Canada has a strategy where ecosystem-based fisheries management is included under the biodiversity targets.”
The result, she says, is a strategy that’s comprehensive.
“Is it perfect? No. Is it pretty good? Yes. I give the government credit for getting a good national nature strategy out.”
“Another thing that’s in there is a commitment to speeding up Species at Risk Act listing decisions, because we have seen no aquatic species listed under this government, no decisions made. So that is at least a commitment to do things better.”
A year earlier, in May 2023, most provinces and territories agreed to collaborate with the federal government to implement new biodiversity targets and objectives. To that end, the federal government has signed nature agreements with the Yukon, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia to try to meet terrestrial protection targets.
Beyond the goal of 30 by 30, Canada is the only country that’s committed to an interim target of protecting 25 percent of land and sea by 2025.
As part of efforts to reach that goal, Canada committed up to $800 million to support Indigenous-led conservation initiatives.
This included Project Finance for Permanence (PFP), a model that leverages government and private funding to support large-scale, long-term conservation. It brings together partners from Indigenous governments and communities, other levels of government, and the philanthropic community.
The four initiatives are: Northwest Territories PFP; Great Bear Sea (Northern Shelf Bioregion) PFP; Qikiqtani PFP; and Omushkego Wahkohtowin PFP.
Great Bear Sea has been completed, and the three others are on the cusp of being finished. Once all are in place, these projects could protect an additional one million square kilometres.
In February 2023, Canada also announced minimum standards for marine protected areas, which apply to all areas established as of 2019. These ban oil and gas exploration, development, and production; mineral exploration and exploitation; disposal and dumping of waste, fill, deleterious drugs, and pesticides; and mobile, bottom contact, trawl, and dredge gear.
“A lot of the world, including Europe, is really struggling with implementing bottom trawling bans in protected areas. But Canada has generally done this from the start and now requires it for all protected areas,” Fuller says.
“While it seems like a low bar to have no major industrial activities in your MPAs, I think it is important that Canada and the fishing industry take credit for this.”
Fuller says there’s been a lot of work on protected areas and a big push to get to 25 percent. Canada is currently at 15.54 percent, but she expects we’ll hit the 25 percent goal using all the tools in the toolbox, including ministerial orders under the Oceans Act, which offer five years of interim protection while a protected area is established.
“Canada’s done probably as good a job as it possibly could on place based protections in an extraction-based country and at a time when people are concerned about other things,” Fuller says.
WHAT’S NEXT?
COP16 is the first meeting of parties since the GBF was finalized. While COP15 was about agreeing on targets for protecting nature, this year is about agreeing on the plan to actually meet those targets. Simply, how do countries plan to walk the talk?
During the two-week gathering in Columbia, all countries who signed on must submit their strategies for achieving the goals set out in the global biodiversity framework. Governments must also agree on the mechanisms needed to implement the framework’s goals.
“This COP will be about the drum beat to 30 by 30, because that is a tangible target. But important issues like measuring progress and funding for biodiversity protection need to be resolved,” Fuller says.
“It’s important that we remember there are many other targets, including those upholding Indigenous rights. It’s a full suite of measures that include the other 70 percent of the planet outside the protected areas.”
Among them? Coastal habitat restoration, sustainable fisheries, and integrating climate change into biodiversity.
“It’s kind of our job as NGOs to ensure these things don’t get lost.”
Decisions also need to be made about ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSMAs). Canada was instrumental in putting forward the concept; however, for some time now, there has been disagreement on whether other outside experts should have a say in reviewing an EBSMA a country has identified before it is included in the CBD repository.
Fuller says this decision is important because understanding the CBD’s role in defining areas important for marine biological diversity on the high seas will help inform the High Seas Treaty.
“We know we can only get to 30 by 30 if the protection on the high seas is included,” she says.
“Getting countries to agree that EBSMAs have a role on the high seas is important for biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. It’s one of those foundation layers of how we might eventually get to High Seas Treaty implementation.”
IN THE TRENCHES
This comes as biodiversity declines faster than at any time in human history, driven by habitat loss and degradation, climate change, pollution, invasive species, and overexploitation.
A landmark 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that one million of the world’s eight million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.
Fuller takes heart from the great deal of progress that’s been made, however.
“People shouldn’t forget that the global biodiversity framework was a significant agreement. The fact that it got passed and it’s as strong as it is really is kind of amazing,” she says.
“2022 was a giant year. After a moment like that, you go back into the trenches and try to deliver for the next decade. That’s where we’re at – in implementing mode.”