The UN-COP15 summit on Biological Diversity : A case study of the chytrid infestation of a toad in Java, Indonesia
The majority of all plants and animals are at risk of extinction due to climate change and pollution. The United Nations will host a summit this week to address the emergency of the environment, called the COP15 conference.
The negotiators from several African countries, which are home to some of the world’s most biodiverse areas, thought that the China presidency was strong-armed and would allow the deal to go through. Uganda called it a fraud. A source who spoke to Nature from the African delegation, and who asked not to be named to maintain diplomacy, said the negotiating process was not equitable towards developing countries and that the deal will not enable significant progress towards stemming biodiversity loss. They say it was a coup d’état. However, a legal expert for the Convention on Biological Diversity — the treaty within which the framework now sits — told COP15 attendees that the adoption of the framework is legitimate.
The most at-risk groups are the salamanders and corals. The critically extinct bleeding toad is found in Mount Gede Pangrango National Park in Java, Indonesia.
Some toads were spotted in the year 2000 and were thought to be extinct until then. But the researchers found that the amphibians were infected with chytrid (Chytridiomycota sp.), a fungus that has devastated global amphibian populations. Kusrini says that climate change is probably making life hard for the tiny toad, which got its common name from the crimson, splatter-like spots covering its body. Warm weather can stimulate fungal outbreaks and shift the timing of behaviours, such as the toads’ breeding season, making the amphibians vulnerable.
Global warming, which has been raising sea temperatures, is also responsible for harming coral reefs around the globe (see ‘Threat assessment’). Over a period of 9 years, up to 2018, 14% of the world’s coral died out — a massive problem, because today, coral reefs support one-quarter of all marine species.
How well can we survive in a rainforest? A phenomenological study of resilience in rainforests, with a discussion with Naeem
It’s hard to predict, because of the fact that you need to know which species are present in a particular rainforest and what their functions are. Much of that information is often unknown. Scientists have shown that a less-biodiversity environment is worse at capturing and converting resources into energy than one with more.
Neither are less-diverse ecosystems as good at decomposing and recycling biological materials and nutrients. For example, studies show that dead organisms are broken down, and their nutrients recycled, more quickly when a high variety of plant litter covers the forest floor4. Ecosystems with low biodiversity also have low resilience — they are not as able to bounce back after a perturbation or shock, such as a fire, as more-diverse systems are, Naeem says.
“If we lose parts of our system, it simply won’t function very efficiently, and it won’t be very robust,” he adds. “The science behind that is rock solid.”
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04370-4
Measurement of Subsidies in Endangered Ecosystems to Protect Species and Protect Biodiversity: A Commitment from Environment and Conservation Law
Ecosystems also provide clean water and can sometimes prevent diseases from spreading to humans. When species are lost, these services deteriorate, Kusrini says. For example, most amphibians eat insects, many of which are considered pests, such as cockroaches, termites and mosquitoes. There have been studies that show an increase in cases of malaria in areas where the amphibian population has collapsed. “You know when they disappear”, Kusrini says, because insect numbers rise and people start using more pesticides to kill them.
Eradicating invasive species is another important conservation strategy, and the framework’s draft currently calls for cutting the introduction of such species in half. According to some estimates, animals like cats and rats cause more than half of extinctions of birds, mammals and reptiles.
It is important for nations to agree on a framework with at least some measurable targets, so that progress can be measured and countries can be held accountable if they fail to meet their targets, researchers say. “I’m afraid what will happen is, they will produce a long list of ‘waffle’,” Pimm says. “We need quantification.”
Some advocates wanted tougher language around subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world. The document wants to identify subsidies that can be phased out or reformed by 2025.
There are still some concerns and disappointing things. For one, the deal lacks a mandatory requirement for companies to track and disclose their impact on biodiversity. Eva Zabey is the executive director of Business for Nature and says that a requirement for firms to compete on a level playing field is not enough. Nevertheless, it sends a powerful signal to industry that it will need to reduce negative impacts over time, says Andrew Deutz, an environmental law and finance specialist at the Nature Conservancy, a conservation group in Arlington, Virginia.
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and Biodiversity: The COP15 Negotiations after the South American-Asia Conference
The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.
Brazil spoke during the week about how developed countries give $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies and that a new funding mechanism should be set up.
“All the elements are in there for a balance of unhappiness which is the secret to achieving agreement in U.N. bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a negotiator from Namibia who is helping coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. Everyone got some of the things they wanted. Let’s see if there is there is a spirit of unity.”
“It’s important for the rights of Indigenous peoples to be there, and while it’s not the exact wording of that proposal in the beginning, we feel that it is a good compromise and that it addresses the concerns we have,” said Jennifer Corpuz, a representative of the It is a good basis for us to be able to implement policy at the national level.
The Wildlife Conservancy and other environmental groups were worried that the draft put off a goal of preventing the extinction of species, preserving the integrity of the environment and maintaining the genetic diversity of populations. They fear that timeline is not ambitions enough.
Still, some human rights advocates are skeptical, calling the 30×30 target a “big green lie” on social media. The non-profit organization Survival International said on Facebook that the land grab would force millions of Indigenous people off their ancestral lands.
The new framework is just a starting point; now comes the even harder task of making progress on the ground — all while attempting to avoid the harms committed in the name of conservation in the past.
It felt like a championship game heading into extra time in knife-edge fashion, Deutz said. The next phase of hard work already beckons for the global biodiversity community.
Steven Guilbeault, the Canadian environment minister, described COP15 as the most significant biodiversity conference ever held. “We have taken a great step forward in history,” he said at a plenary session where the framework was adopted.
At several points during the United Nations summit, which ran from 7–19 December, arguments over details threatened to derail a deal. In the final hours of negotiations, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) objected to how the framework would be funded. Nonetheless, Huang Runqiu, China’s environment minister and president of COP15, brought the gavel down on the agreement.
The deal is weak when it comes to dealing with the drivers of biodiversity loss, since it does not specifically mention commercial fishing and agriculture or set precise targets for them, according to researchers.
“I would have liked more ambition and precision in the targets” to address those drivers, says Sandra Diaz, an ecologist at the National University of Córdoba, in Argentina.
Stuart Pimm says the framework is a good start, with clear targets that will allow us to understand progress and reasons for success and failure.
A brand-new, independent fund for biodiversity financing was called for by the low- and middle-income countries. Lee White, environment minister from Gabon, told Nature that biodiversity-rich LMICs have difficulty accessing the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the current fund held by the World Bank in Washington DC, and that it is slow to distribute funds.
France and the European Union objected to a new fund because it would be too long to set up. The framework instead compromises by establishing a trust fund by next year under the GEF. The GEF is called upon to reform its process in order to address the concerns of LMICs.
Developing a global oceans treaty to protect the world’s oceans from the 2024 UN Biodiversity Summit in New York
How to share the benefits of digital sequence information, which is genetic data collected from animals and plants, was one of the sticking points in negotiations. There is little control over commercialization of genetic material collected in biodiversity rich regions, and no way to recover financial or other benefits from them. The details of a mechanism to share profits will be worked out by the next international biodiversity summit, which will take place in 2024.
United Nations members gather Monday in New York to resume efforts to forge a long-awaited and elusive treaty to safeguard the world’s marine biodiversity.
Almost two-thirds of the ocean is outside national boundaries on the high seas where fragmented and unevenly enforced rules attempt to reduce human impacts.
Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada’s Dalhousie University states that the life support system of the planet is the ocean. “For the longest time, we did not feel we had a large impact on the high seas. The notion of expansion of deep sea fishing, mining, plastic pollution, and climate change has changed.
The aim of the talks is not to actually designate marine protected areas, but to establish a mechanism for doing so. Clark said the goal is to set up a body that would accept submissions for marine protected areas.
“This is our largest global commons,” said Nichola Clark, an oceans expert who follows the negotiations for the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. The upcoming round of negotiations will be the one where the treaty becomes a reality.
Marine biologist Simon Ingram at the University of Plymouth in England says there’s an urgent need for an accord. “Especially when you have deep-sea mining that could be a serious threat to the ocean floor and the life on it, and we don’t have the tools to do that yet,” he said.
According to experts, a global oceans treaty is needed to strictly enforce the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s oceans.
“We need a legally binding framework that can enable countries to work together to actually achieve these goals they’ve agreed to,” said Jessica Battle, an expert on oceans governance at World Wide Fund for Nature
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Monica Medina said the treaty was a priority for the country. She said that the agreement seeks to establish a coordinated approach to establishing marine protected areas on the high seas. It is time to finish the job.
Small Pacific and Caribbean island countries are particularly vulnerable to global ocean issues such as pollution and climate change, which generally they do not cause nor have the resources to easily address, according to a lawyer from Samoa who is currently an Ocean Voices fellow.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/19/1158215292/un-talks-to-safeguard-the-worlds-marine-biodiversity-will-pick-back-up-this-week
Dialogue on Indigenous People’s Understanding of the Earth’s Habitable Zones and Their Roles in the Conservation of the Terrestrial Environment
“Getting the traditional knowledge of local people and communities recognized as valid” is also essential to protect both ecosystems and the ways of life of Indigenous groups, she said.
The talks are important because nearly 50% of the planet’s surface is covered by high seas, according to Gladys Martinx de Lemos, executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense.