Open Forum
New Delhi, 11 January 2023
Biodiversity
Pact
LANDMARK
INITIATIVE
By Dhurjati
Mukherjee
In the realm
of environment, which is obviously the centre point of focus in the world
today, the climate and biodiversity conventions last year have been landmark
agreements. A Loss and Damage Fund in the former and a target to bring at least
30 percent of terrestrial, inland water and coastal and marine areas under
effective conservation and management by 2030 in the latter have enormous
bearing on the environment.
Around 190
countries approved a sweeping UN agreement and to take a slew of other measures
against rampant biodiversity loss which, if left unchecked, jeopardizes the
planet’s food and water supplies as well as the existence of untold species
around the world. It may be mentioned here that currently 17 percent and 10
percent of the world’s terrestrial and marine areas respectively are under
protection. For India, the figures stand at 5.26 percent and 0.2 percent
respectively. Less than 10 percent of terrestrial protected areas in the world
are both protected and conserved.
The
agreement, which is considered as equivalent to the Paris Agreement, comes as
biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates never witnessed in human history.
Scientists have projected that a million plants and animals are at risk of
extinction, many within decades. The deal lays out a suite of 23 conservation
targets. Countries also agreed to manage the remaining 70 per cent of the
planet to avoid losing areas of high importance to biodiversity and to ensure
that big businesses disclose biodiversity risks and impacts.
This is
indeed a highly significant agreement as it would go a long way to halt and
reverse the destruction of nature. It is understood that the biodiversity
summit has agreed to four goals and 23 targets. The goals include protecting 30
per cent of the world’s land, water and marine areas by 2030, as well as the
mobilization, by 2030, of at least US $200 billion annually in domestic and
international biodiversity-related funding from all sources, both public and
private.
There is
also a pledge to reduce subsidies deemed harmful to nature by at least $500
billion by 2030, while having developed countries commit to providing
developing countries with at least $20 billion per year by 2025, and $30
billion per year by 2030.
One is
inclined to refer here to the Living Planet Report 2022, the most authentic
study of trends in the realm of biodiversity revealed an average 69 percent
decline in species population since 1970. During this period, it is reported
that half of the world’s corals have been lost and are losing forest areas the
size of 27 football fields every minute.
The Minister
of Environment and Forests informed the Rajya Sabha in mid-December that 73
species in the country, including nine species of mammals, 18 birds, 26
reptiles and 20 amphibians are critically endangered, up from 47 in 2011.
Obviously, rapid global warming and unprecedented rate of extinction are two of
the basic reasons for this state of affairs.
“In some
locations, it can mean the loss of the very land where coastal communities
live,” the report pointed out. Around 137 square kilometres of the Sundarbans
mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh has been eroded since 1985, reducing
land and ecosystem services for many of the 10 million people who live there,
the analysis showed. “Climate change in India will impact key areas, such as
water resources, agriculture, natural ecosystems, health and the food chain,”
Ravi Singh, Secretary-General and Chief Executive, WWF India, had rightly
observed in analyzing the report.
It is a
well-known fact that climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and
development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019
warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades
— a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. It may be news that
humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and one out of
five people of the world’s eight billion population depend on those
species for food and income, the report said.
It is thus
obvious that experts have voiced the need for an all-inclusive collective
approach that can put us on a more sustainable path and ensures that the costs
and benefits from our actions are socially just and equitably shared. Climate
change and biodiversity loss are not only environmental issues, but economic,
development, security, social, moral and ethical issues too. As has been
emphasized again and again with statistical data, industrialised countries are
responsible for most environmental degradation but it is developing
nations that are disproportionately impacted by biodiversity loss.
The WWF
identified six key threats to biodiversity — agriculture, hunting, logging,
pollution, invasive species and climate change — to highlight ‘threat hotspots’
for terrestrial vertebrates. A nature-positive future needs transformative,
game-changing shifts in how we produce, how we consume, how we govern and what
we finance,” highlighted the Living Planet Report. The present agreement is
thus a fall-out of the report as it has set targets which needs to be achieved
in the coming years.
However,
though biodiversity loss cannot be allowed to continue, there is another aspect
of the problem that also needs to be seriously considered. There are estimates
by economists suggesting that the carrying capacity of the planet is about five
billion humans at the most, without irreversibly running down natural capital.
Other estimates of the carrying capacity of the planet for humans, average
around eight billion. But we have steadily surpassed the figure and providing
food thus becomes a big challenge, specially for the populous countries of the
Third World like China and India.
There is
thus a need to balance preservation of biodiversity with increased food
production in the coming years. Neglecting biodiversity cannot be the answer to
the requirements of human beings and a judicious approach is called for in this
regard. As far as India is concerned, there is a need to concentrate on
biodiversity conservation while also exploring ways and means with the help of
technological innovations to increase agricultural productivity, specially in
areas where it is below the national average. Sooner the better. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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