Source material and useful links

23/1/2021: A new study reveals that 6% of the world’s protected land has been cleared and converted to crop fields, further evidence that the planet’s protected areas may not be living up to their name.

Source: Mongabay

13/1/2021: At the recent One Planet Summit for Biodiversity the Great Green Wall for the Sahel and Sahara Initiative received $14 billion in additional funding pledges for the next ten years. This financial support will scale up efforts to restore degraded land, create green jobs, strengthen resilience and protect biodiversity.

Source: UN Environment Programme

12/1/2021: Thanks to Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment and the satellite monitoring group Planet, anyone with an internet connection can now view monthly updates of high-resolution satellite imagery of tropical forests for free.

Source: Mongabay

11/1/2021: The one-day biodiversity summit, co-hosted by France, the UN and the World Bank, aimed to converge efforts to reverse biodiversity loss with addressing the climate crisis. Campaigners welcomed commitments to ramp up funding for biodiversity but raised concerns it came at the expense of other climate and aid spending.

Source: Climate Home News

2/1/2021: We are in the middle of a biodiversity and climate change emergency – and the two are inextricably linked. Climate change is driving nature’s decline, and the loss of wildlife and wild places leaves us ill equipped to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to change.

Source: Centre for Alternative Technology

28/10/2020: With research showing the impact of infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia, experts call for the protection of ecosystems to be taken into account, especially in China's Belt and Road project, the largest of all.

Source: China Dialogue

28/10/2020: Sir Robert Watson, former chair of IPBES, suggests that the world's major banks are providing the capital that exploits our lands and seas, putting biodiversity in freefall. He calls for regulations to enforce accountability for financial institutions.

Source: The Guardian

28/9/2020: Protecting and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystems will be eye-wateringly expensive, but experts are clear that business as usual will cost even more. The “sixth mass extinction” poses a threat not just to species and ecosystems, but also to economies.

Source: China Dialogue

30/9/2020: The recently-released United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 reveals that biodiversity is declining at record rates, and only six of the 20 goals laid out by 2010’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets have been “partially achieved.”

Source: Inter Press Service

28/9/2020: A pledging conference to halt the decline of biodiversity worldwide yielded only a handful of vague financial commitments from European governments. The world currently spends less than $100 billion a year on nature, leaving a shortfall of $600 to $824 billion a year.

Source: Climate Home News