Convention On Biological Diversity Targets Research Articles

Importance of equitable cost sharing in the Convention on Biological Diversity's protected area agenda

Establishing systems of protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) is a key strategy to reversing biodiversity loss (CBD SBSTA, 2021; Maxwell et al., 2020). As part of its mandate to safeguard biodiversity, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) provided clear international targets on establishing PAs and OECMs in 2010. Aichi Target 11 called for the protection of 10% of marine and 17% of terrestrial areas globally (CBD, 2010). These percentages were interim targets to encourage ambition while ensuring tractability and not necessarily based on conservation needs (Woodley et al. 2019). There is general consensus that the percentages behind Target 11 were insufficient to protect all important aspects of Earth's biodiversity. Proposed replacement percentages range from 28% to 80%, depending on the desired outcome (Butchart et al., 2015, Dinerstein et al. 2019, Woodley et al. 2019, Jones et al., 2020). As the CBD finalizes its post-2020 strategic plan - the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) - there is consensus that it must include more ambitious area-based targets paired with stronger implementation mechanisms (Visconti et al., 2019; Maxwell et al., 2020). Most lessons learned from the outcomes of Aichi Target 11 relate to the suitability of its environmental targets, potentially obscuring how it affected social equity (the absence of avoidable and unfair cost and benefit distributions) (McDermott et al., 2013). The power to implement CBD targets lies with countries through their national biodiversity strategic and action plans (NBSAPs). Whether targets are achieved equitably depends on decision-makers within national borders. However, global conservation is inherently a transboundary pursuit; costs of environmental degradation and benefits of conservation spill over borders (Mason et al., 2020; Roberson et al., 2020). Geopolitical states have high variability in the numbers of threatened species and habitats within their borders and varied abilities to conserve based on financial capacities, conflict, and collective attitudes toward conservation. These realities require consideration of equity beyond the local scale to equity among geopolitical states in global conservation efforts (Sarkki & Garcia, 2019). To date, the CBD has emphasized equitable benefit sharing, or the fair distribution of benefits from the harvest or study of biological resources (Nagoya Protocol). There has been less emphasis on equitable cost-sharing, which includes direct costs of establishing and managing PAs and opportunity costs of not undertaking certain economic activities (e.g., agriculture) in PAs (Naidoo & Iwamura, 2007). Costs pose significant short-term barriers to halting biodiversity loss (Waldron et al., 2013; Maxwell et al., 2020). Once adequate financing and equitable cost-sharing are achieved, long-term revenues and ecosystem services of most PAs are projected to exceed implementation and opportunity costs (Waldron et al., 2020). However, interventions are still needed to alleviate the short-term costs certain groups may bear. Although the CBD does not legally require that countries implement equitable cost-sharing, finalization of the GBF presents an opportunity to apply social equity concepts to its revised area-based conservation strategy for just and effective implementation. We highlighted this opportunity by identifying lessons learned from Aichi Target 11 through the lens of social equity theory. We then devised recommendations on how to approach equitable cost-sharing among countries for PAs in the post-2020 GBF.

Ex situ management as insurance against extinction of mammalian megafauna in an uncertain world.

The persistence of endangered species may depend on the fate of a very small number of individual animals. In situ conservation alone may sometimes be insufficient. In these instances, the International Union for Conservation of Nature provides guidelines for ex situ conservation and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) indicates how ex situ management can support the CBD's objectives by providing insurance policies for species. The circumstances that justify its use are uncertain. To evaluate the current in situ extinction risk and ex situ management of 43 critically endangered species of mammalian megafauna, we used nonmetric multidimensional scaling and geopolitical variables related to governance, economics, and national policy within their extant ranges. We then fitted generalized additive models to assess the contribution of each variable to the ordination. Fifteen (almost one-third) of the world's terrestrial mammalian megafauna are not the subject of any ex situ management. Seventy-three percent of these taxa occur in areas characterized by political uncertainty, such as border zones or areas affected by armed conflicts, mainly in Africa and the Middle East. A further 23% of taxa in ex situ programs do not meet sustainability criteria for inbreeding avoidance. Strategic conservation planning, such as the One Plan approach, may improve ex situ management for these taxa. Given the escalating trend in threats afflicting megafauna, ex situ management should be considered more rigorously, particularly in politically unstable regions, to achieve CBD Target 12 (prevent extinction of threatened species).

Long-term loss in extent and current protection of terrestrial ecosystem diversity in the temperate and tropical Americas.

Documenting changes in ecosystem extent and protection is essential to understanding status of biodiversity and related ecosystem services and have direct applications to measuring Essential Biodiversity Variables, Targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. We developed both potential and current distribution maps of terrestrial ecosystem types for the temperate and tropical Americas; with “potential” estimating where a type would likely occur today had there not been prior land conversion for modern land uses. We utilized a hierarchical classification to describe and map natural ecosystem types at six levels of thematic detail, with lower thematic levels defining more units each with narrower floristic range than upper levels. Current land use/land cover was derived using available global data on human land use intensity and combined with the potential distribution maps to estimate long-term change in extent for each ecosystem type. We also assessed representation of ecosystem types within protected areas as defined by IUCN I-VI land status categories. Of the 749 ecosystem types assessed, represented at 5th (n = 315) vs. 6th (n = 433) levels of the classification hierarchy, 5 types (1.6%) and 31 types (7.1%), respectively, have lost >90% of their potential extent. Some 66 types (20.9%) and 141 types (32.5%), respectively, have lost >50% of their potential extent; thus, crossing thresholds of Vulnerable status under IUCN Red List criterion A3. For ecosystem type representation within IUCN protected area classes, with reference to potential extent of each type, 111 (45.3%) and 125 (28.8%) of types, respectively, have higher representation (>17%) than CBD 2020 targets. Twelve types (3.8%) and 23 (5.3%) of types, respectively, are represented with <1% within protected areas. We illustrate an option for visualizing and reporting on CBD targets (2020 and proposed post-2020) for ecosystem representativeness using both potential extent as a baseline.

Uneven use of biodiversity indicators in 5th National Reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity

SummaryIndicators are necessary to monitor national progress toward commitments made to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), but countries often struggle to mobilize quantitative indicators for many biodiversity targets. Assessing the extent to which countries are using measurable indicators from global and national sources by surveying 5th National Reports to the CBD, we found that nationally generated indicators were used 11 times more frequently than global indicators and only one-fifth of indicators matched those recommended by the CBD, suggesting that countries and indicator experts should work more closely to agree upon measurable, scalable, fit-for-purpose indicators for the next generation of CBD targets.

Monitoring the biodiversity of regions: Key principles and possible pitfalls

Through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 and 2020 biodiversity targets, nations committed to reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity. This requires calculating the biodiversity trends in nations, whereas previously, most academic research on quantifying biodiversity concerned communities within relatively small sites. We consider design and analysis issues that CBD targets raise and explore the potential pitfalls for managers of monitoring schemes when statistical principles yield to practical constraints. We list five main criteria that well-designed monitoring programmes should meet: representative sampling locations, sufficient sample size, sufficient detections of target species, a representative sample of species, and a sound temporal sampling scheme. We examine the implications of biodiversity assessments that fail to meet these criteria and suggest ways to alleviate these implications through analytical approaches. We discuss the remarkable potential for wide-scale biodiversity monitoring offered by technological advances and by the rise of citizen science.

Tax Shifting and Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation on Private Lands

AbstractConservation in human‐dominated landscapes is challenging partly due to the high costs of land acquisition. We explored a property tax mechanism to finance conservation easements or related contracts as a partial‐property acquisition strategy to meet Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) treaty targets to conserve critically imperiled coastal Douglas fir ecosystems in Canada. To maximize cost‐efficiency, we used systematic planning tools to prioritize 198,058 parcels for biodiversity values, estimated the cost of eliminating property tax on high‐priority parcels to engage land owners in conservation, and then calculated the tax increase on nonpriority parcels necessary to maintain tax revenue. Marginal tax rate increases of 0.13, 0.21, and 0.51% on nonpriority parcels were necessary to offset the elimination of tax revenue on ∼21,000 ha of high‐priority parcels, and potentially sufficient to increase area protection from 9% to 17% to meet CBD targets given uptake rates of 100, 50, or 25%, respectively. Sensitivity analyses suggest uptake rates of 30% to 40% could allow government to achieve a 17% target with 30% of the planning area prioritized for inclusion in a property tax mechanism. Our results suggest prioritizing parcels for biodiversity value and commensurate “tax shifting” may offer an efficient route to conservation on private land.

Looking Beyond the Fenceline: Assessing Protection Gaps for the World's Rivers

AbstractProtected areas are a cornerstone strategy for terrestrial and increasingly marine biodiversity conservation, but their use for conserving inland waters has received comparatively scant attention. In 2010, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) included a target of 17% protection for inland waters, yet there has been no meaningful way of measuring progress toward that target. Defining and evaluating “protection” is especially complicated for rivers because their integrity is intimately linked to impacts in their upstream catchments. A new generation of global hydrographic data now enables a high‐resolution, standardized assessment of how upland activities may be propagated downstream. Here, we develop and apply, globally, a river protection metric that integrates both local and upstream catchment protection. We found that “integrated” river protection is highly variable across geographies and river size classes and in most basins falls short of the 17% CBD target. Around the world, about 70% of river reaches (by length) have no protected areas in their upstream catchments, and only 11.1% (by length) achieve full integrated protection. The average level of integrated protection is 13.5% globally, yet the majority of the world's largest basins show averages below 10%. Within basins, gaps are particularly severe for larger rivers.

A comparative analysis of three marine governance systems for implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

Successful implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) requires critical reflection on governance structures especially in the biodiverse tropics where institutional capacity is weak and fragmented. This paper explores three modes of marine governance in Thailand and discusses the challenges each faces when delivering conservation and sustainable development objectives. Focusing on Marine Protected Areas (MPA), the dominant management approaches to biodiversity conservation, centralised, decentralised and shared governance, are scrutinised through a review of the literature and 24 key informant interviews with leading Thai academics, national and regional government officers and NGOs. We find both the centralised, state-managed MPA system and the decentralised, community-based MPA system to have severe limitations, for different reasons, in protecting biodiversity, whereas shared governance, despite being less common, is the best intermediate mode. Shared governance is the most viable option available in Thailand for working towards key CBD targets because: (1) local participation can legitimise much of the relationship with the centralised system and can help embed a decentralised system in natural resources management; (2) the centralised system will still remain in ultimate control, which, whilst not favoured by those who want decentralisation, will satisfy powerful elites, and offer more opportunity to empower local people to take responsibility for conservation targets; and (3) the capacity of both local and national stakeholders can be built to deal with the complexity of the marine environment.

Global Biodiversity Indicators Reflect the Modeled Impacts of Protected Area Policy Change

Global biodiversity indicators can be used to measure the status and trends of biodiversity relating to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) targets. Whether such indicators can support decision makers by distinguishing among policy options remains poorly evaluated. We tested the ability of two CBD indicators, the Living Planet Index and the Red List Index, to reflect projected changes in mammalian populations in sub-Saharan Africa in response to potential policies related to CBD targets for protected areas (PAs). We compared policy scenarios to expand the PA network, improve management effectiveness of the existing network, and combinations of the two, against business as usual. Both indicators showed that more effective management would provide greater benefits to biodiversity than expanding PAs alone. The indicators were able to communicate outcomes of modeled scenarios in a simple quantitative manner, but behaved differently. This work highlights both the considerable potential of indicators in supporting decisions, and the need to understand how indicators will respond as biodiversity changes.

Targeting global protected area expansion for imperiled biodiversity.

Author SummaryUnder the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), governments have agreed to ambitious targets for expanding the global protected area network that could drive the greatest surge in new protected areas in history. They have also agreed to arrest the decline of known threatened species. However, existing protected areas perform poorly for coverage of threatened species, with only 15% of threatened vertebrates being adequately represented. Moreover, we find that if future protected area expansion continues in a business-as-usual fashion, threatened species coverage will increase only marginally. This is because low-cost priorities for meeting the CBD targets have little overlap with priorities for threatened species coverage. Here we propose a method for averting this outcome, by linking threatened species coverage to protected area expansion. Our analyses clearly demonstrate that considerable increases in protected area coverage of species could be achieved at minimal additional cost. Exploiting this opportunity will require directly linking the CBD targets on protected areas and threatened species, thereby formalizing the interdependence of these key commitments.

Providing Habitat for Native Mammals through Understory Enhancement in Forestry Plantations

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) expects forestry plantations to contribute to biodiversity conservation. A well-developed understory in forestry plantations might serve as a surrogate habitat for native species and mitigate the negative effect of plantations on species richness. We experimentally tested this hypothesis by removing the understory in Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) plantations in central Chile and assessing changes in species richness and abundance of medium-sized mammals. Frequency of occurrence of mammals, including kodkods (Leopardus guigna), culpeo foxes (Pseudalopex culpaeus), lesser grisons (Conepatus chinga), and Southern pudu deer (Pudu puda), was low in forest stands with little to no understory relative to stands with well-developed undergrowth vegetation. After removing the understory, their frequency of occurrence decreased significantly, whereas in control stands, where understory was not removed, their frequency did not change. This result strongly supports the idea that facilitating the development of undergrowth vegetation may turn forestry stands into secondary habitats as opposed to their containing no habitat for native mammals. This forestry practice could contribute to conservation of biological diversity as it pertains to CBD targets.

Community-based monitoring of tourism resources as a tool for supporting the Convention On Biological Diversity Targets: A preliminary global assessment

Tourism can play a significant role in contributing to multiple Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Targets. Monitoring tourism resources and impacts is crucial in gauging the performance of tourism in support of the CBD Targets. Community-based monitoring (CBM) offers a viable solution to the concerns about costs and longevity of monitoring programmes, allowing for the continuation of monitoring plans on a lower budget while creating a venue for civic engagement and capacity building. This paper provides a preliminary global assessment and typology of CBM programmes with a focus on tourism resources (CBM-T). Twenty-nine CBM-T programmes with two primary monitoring approaches were identified based on an extensive literature review, including an infrastructure-based approach focusing on tourism facilities, and an ecosystem-based approach focusing on natural resources that support the tourism experience. These programmes are further differentiated by spatial scale, goals, biome, and resources, as illustrated by 10 representative programmes. Two case examples, one on trail monitoring in Taiwan and another on wildlife monitoring in Namibia, are used to illustrate design and implementation of each CBMT approach. Lessons learned, such as criteria for communities with potential for sustainable CBM-T programmes, are discussed.

Funding nature conservation: who pays?

[Extract] At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya in October 2010, the world's governments signed up to an encouragingly ambitious set of conservation targets. These included protecting 17% of the world's land surface and 10% of the oceans by 2020. The meeting also achieved its three inter- linked goals: the adoption of a new 10-year Strategic Plan (CBD, 2011); a Resource Mobilization Strategy to increase development assistance in support of biodiversity; and a new international protocol on access to and sharing of the benefits from the use of the planet's genetic resources. To achieve these goals, governments must substantially increase their contributions towards biodiversity conservation. With the current global financial crisis, this will be a huge challenge. Many poorer countries have already indicated a lack of resources to implement the CBD targets (see below). In addition, many governments are already committed to raising $100 billion (USD) per year for climate change by 2020, and may not be able to afford additional investment that supports biodiversity conservation. In response to the existing financial challenges, budgetary decisions on how to pay via the Resource Mobilization Strategy were deferred until 2012. Efforts are currently under way by the CBD Secretariat to document current expenditures on biodiversity conservation worldwide, and to cost out what it would take to implement the Strategic Plan.

Progress towards international targets for protected area coverage in mountains: A multi-scale assessment

Through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the world’s governments recently adopted a target to protect “at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas” by 2020. One of the CBD’s thematic programmes of work focuses on mountains, given their importance for biodiversity and other ecosystem services, and their vulnerability to global change. We evaluated current levels of protection for mountains at multiple scales. Encouragingly, the CBD’s 17% target has already been almost met at a global scale: 16.9% of the world’s mountain areas outside Antarctica fall within protected areas. However, protection of mountain areas at finer scales remains uneven and is largely insufficient, with 63% (125) of countries, 57% (4) of realms, 67% (8) of biomes, 61% (437) of ecoregions and 53% (100) of Global 200 priority ecoregions falling short of the target. The target also calls for protected areas to be focussed “especially [at] areas of particular importance for biodiversity”. Important Bird Areas and Alliance for Zero Extinction sites represent existing global networks of such sites. It is therefore of major concern that 39% and 45% respectively of these sites in mountain areas remain entirely unprotected. Achievement of the 2020 CBD target in mountain regions will require more focused expansion of the protected area network in addition to enhanced management of individual sites and the wider countryside in order to ensure long term conservation of montane biodiversity and the other ecosystem services it provides.

Global Marine Protection Targets: How S.M.A.R.T are They?

Global marine protection targets have been criticised for being ecologically irrelevant and often inadequate. However, they may also provide motivation for conservation action. However, no such targets have yet been met, and the health of the marine environment has continued to deteriorate. The Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recently adopted a new marine protection target, in October, 2010. As such, it is timely to critically assess the potential role of this and other global marine protection targets in conservation and marine resource management. Three targets adopted in the past ten years were assessed using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timebound) framework. This assessment showed that the targets appear to have evolved to have become 'SMARTer' over time, particularly more Specific. The most recent CBD target also appears to be more Achievable than earlier targets. Three broad issues emerged that can inform the potential role, limitations, and challenges associated with global-scale marine protection targets: (i) that SMART target formulation, implementation, monitoring, and revision, is critically underpinned by relevant data and information; (ii) that perceived irrelevance of global targets may be at least partly due to a mismatch between the scale at which the targets were intended to operate, and the scale at which they have sometimes been assessed; and (iii) the primary role of global-scale targets may indeed be psychological rather than ecological. Recent progress indicates some success in this role, which could be built on with further 'SMARTening' of targets.

2010 and beyond for Lepidoptera

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was an outcome of the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In 2002 the Convention committed the European Union (EU) and (currently) 192 other countries ‘‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level’’ (Anonymous 2010). The EU set an even more ambitious target: ‘‘...to protect and restore habitats and natural systems and halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010...’’ (Anonymous 2001). In March 2010, Butterfly Conservation held its 6th International Symposium on the topic, ‘The 2010 Target and Beyond for Lepidoptera’, to assess progress towards the target, report advances in conservation science, and look to the future. This volume presents a collection of papers from that meeting. Evidence presented at the Symposium from across the world was bleak, with no evidence that the EU and CBD target had been met (Asher et al. 2011; Brereton et al. 2011; Caritg et al. 2011; Fox et al. 2011; Groenendijk and Ellis 2011; Lewis and Senior 2011; Nakamura 2011; Safian et al. 2011; Stefanescu et al. 2011). At the global scale the general trend for Lepidoptera is one of decline, and the overall trend for biodiversity is of a continuous and accelerating decline. In May 2010 the CBD published its overall assessment of progress towards the 2010 target and reported failure (Anonymous 2010). The 2002 CBD and EU targets were ambitious, and, despite not being met, they did manage to place conservation and biodiversity firmly on global and national political and development agendas and provided mechanisms for raising public awareness. Failure can be a powerful stimulus to renewed action, especially if the reasons for failure are identified. New CBD 2020 targets are now being formulated (Djoghlaf 2010) alongside a vision for 2050. Initial progress suggests there will be a much closer integration of biodiversity with climate change adaptation/mitigation, ecosystem services, human health and the economic benefits of biodiversity (Djoghlaf 2010). Papers in this collection examine some of the likely impacts of climate change on Lepidoptera (e.g. de Vries et al. 2011; Wilson and Maclean 2011). Whilst climate change is an issue and will become an even bigger issue in the future, biodiversity loss is already a problem and likely to become worse unless measures are taken now. For some Lepidoptera there is a real and imminent threat of local, regional and global extinction. For such species, urgent action is needed now and climate change is a distant threat. The papers here outline the issues, and some demonstrate how approaches based on sound conservation science can improve the status of species, both preventing imminent extinction and making populations more resilient to future climate change (e.g. Ellis et al. 2011; Porter and Ellis 2011). Meeting the new CBD targets, will require well researched solutions and this volume contains contributions to the challenges ahead under the broad headings of the Science of Conservation Management and Landscape-scale Conservation. Jeremy Thomas, for example, distills a lifetime of experience working with endangered species to identify key factors of importance in butterfly conservation J. W. Dover (&) Institute for Environment, Sustainability and Regeneration, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DE, UK e-mail: j.w.dover@staffs.ac.uk

Trends in the abundance of marine fishes

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established a target in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Using a newly constructed global database for 207 populations (108 species), we examine whether the 2010 target has been met for marine fishes, while accounting for population biomass relative to maximum sustainable yield, BMSY. Although rate of decline has eased for 59% of populations declining before 1992 (a pattern consistent with a literal interpretation of the target), the percentage of populations below BMSY has remained unchanged and the rate of decline has increased among several top predators, many of which are below 0.5BMSY. Combining population trends, a global multispecies index indicates that marine fishes declined 38% between 1970 and 2007. The index has been below BMSY since the mid-1980s and stable since the early 1990s. With the exception of High Seas pelagic fishes and demersal species in the Northeast Pacific and Australia – New Zealand, the multispecies indices are currently below BMSY in many regions. We conclude that the 2010 CBD target represents a weak standard for recovering marine fish biodiversity and that meaningful progress will require population-specific recovery targets and associated time lines for achieving those targets.

Balancing state and volunteer investment in biodiversity monitoring for the implementation of CBD indicators: A French example

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), states have to provide indicators in order to assess the performance of their initiatives for halting the loss of biodiversity. Sixteen headline indicators have been identified for monitoring the CBD targets. Of these indicators only one, “Trends in the abundance and distribution of selected species,” is a direct headline indicator of “non-exploited” biodiversity. In France, the implementation of this indicator is completely dependent on data collected by volunteers. Since this investment of volunteer time is equivalent to savings in administrative costs, we attempt in this paper to assign it a monetary value. This enables us to estimate how much the French administration saves thanks to volunteer efforts and how much public funding would have to be invested if volunteers were no longer willing to participate in these biodiversity monitoring schemes. We estimate this amount to be between 678,523 and 4,415,251 euros per year, depending on the scenario selected.

Linking political and scientifically derived targets for global biodiversity conservation: implications for the expansion of the global network of protected areas

ABSTRACTDespite the global network of protected areas covers 12% of the world's land surface, its performance is still unsatisfactory. Although political and scientifically sound conservation targets usually portray different pictures of the task ahead, we show that in terms of priority areas for expanding the global network of reserves, there is much agreement between the political targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the scientifically derived goals endorsed by international conservation organizations. Here we analyse four global databases to identify priority areas for fulfilling the CBD target of representing 10% of every ecological region within protected areas, and compare the distribution of priority regions for fulfilling that political target, with the distribution of the priority areas for global biodiversity conservation identified by Conservation International, the WWF, and the Wildlife Conservation Society on scientific basis. For 63% (549) of the world's terrestrial ecoregions the CBD 10% target is still not met; fulfilling it requires protecting another 4.6% of the Earth's land surface (6,239,894 km2). Yet, at least 78% of the priority regions for fulfilling that target lay within priority regions for the main global conservation strategies. By pursuing the political target set by the CBD much ancillary gains in terms of other global conservation objectives can be obtained.