Zakri Abdul Hamid
IN a few weeks, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will release a final report card on the world's 20 biodiversity targets, set back in 2010 for achievement by this year. According to all predictions, we have made progress, but largely missed those pledges, as we did the decade before, when the world agreed to stem the rate of biodiversity loss.
The Global Biodiversity Outlook report, fifth edition (it's been published every five years since 1995), will inform the negotiators of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity working on our next set of 10-year targets, with final agreement expected in China next year (postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic).
We can only hope that the searing pain inflicted by the coronavirus crisis will provide the incentive for us to be more respectful of nature, to make the needed transformative changes, and the investments of resources that scientists have called for repeatedly over the decades.
One of the nagging problems with biodiversity as a political issue — one that has confounded the scientific community for so long — is the absence of simple, measurable goals. This contrasts with climate change, with experts in that field calling for the increase in the average global temperature to be kept well below 2 °C.
The 2019 global biodiversity assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) offered for the first time a simple, memorable number that was widely shared and continues to resonate: one million species (out of roughly eight million) are at risk of extinction by 2050.
Both climate change and biodiversity have turned "a metric into a mascot", to borrow a clever phrase. But in the case of biodiversity, one million species at risk is a warning, not a goal.
Today a simple, measurable target is being championed by the Campaign for Nature: "30 by 30", the protection of 30 per cent of our terrestrial and marine environments by 2030. Now other experts, writing in the esteemed journal Science, suggest that the world should also adopt a long-term goal to reduce species extinction to fewer than 20 a year.
Like 30 x 30, the proposal from Germany's Mark Rounsevell and international colleagues, is gaining traction. One of the paper's co-authors, Georgina Mace of University College London, said: "Once a species has gone, it has gone forever, and with it goes all the exquisite adaptations and interactions that it has developed, often over millions of years."
The irreplaceable loss of a species is simple to assess, they argued, and having a prominent, scientifically-defensible target for extinctions will help to galvanise both policy and public support for nature.
Since the Science paper was published, calls have been made to rigorously assess the proposal's feasibility and consequences, in the same way that climate metrics are assessed by the UN's climate-science advisers, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Among many questions: how a target of 20 extinctions per year does — across all plants, animals, and fungi — fit with the IPBES' assessment that one million species are at risk. And what about species not yet described?
Rounsevell and colleagues stress that creating an extinction target should not detract from the need for nationally-relevant targets and policies. And they advocate funding to help countries that are financially poor but biodiversity-rich to meet their goals.
One such group of countries is the "Like-Minded Megadiverse Countries" (LMMC), of which in Asean alone comprise Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Member countries of LMMC hold 60 to 70 per cent of the Earth's species and are considered megadiverse.
Biodiversity loss continues because decisions fail to account for the costs of replacing the services that species and ecosystems provide to humans, such as provisioning services that provide potable water, food, fibre and medicines; regulating services which control our climate, disease vectors, crop pests and pollinators, and cultural services that influence our beliefs, traditions and provide enjoyment opportunities.
In that regard, putting a price on biodiversity and nature's services to people is another important strategy, and we look forward to a review underway on the economics of biodiversity. That report will be published prior to next year's world biodiversity summit in China.
New estimates of nature's values are sure to open many eyes.
The writer is a senior fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and Ambassador and Science Adviser of the Campaign for Nature