Lynne Peeples LiveScience.com Yahoo News 14 Oct 10;
Global biodiversity is declining at an increasingly fast clip, taking down with it natural services such as freshwater provided by rivers and streams and storm protection from barrier islands and marshes, all of which are critical to human societies.
An upcoming meeting in Nagoya, Japan, aims to set conservation targets that will halt this downward trajectory by 2020.
But some conservation experts think that the 20 new goals being considered by the 10th conference of the parties at the Convention on Biological Diversity fall short of what's really needed, especially after an earlier goal set for 2010 have not been met. Experts hope to see the new goals strengthened before negotiations end later this month.
Causes of biodiversity loss
Biodiversity loss can be caused by many different human actions, such as overhunting, pollution and land clearing for farming. For example, companies and individuals clear out parts of the Amazon rainforest to plant crops or to log.
"There are very strong private incentives for people to convert habitat and undertake actions that cause the loss of biodiversity," said Charles Perrings of Arizona State University and lead researcher on a policy paper published this week in the journal Science that makes new recommendations for the convention's goals. "For them, they are usually good reasons, like producing food for their family or protecting themselves against pathogens, but nevertheless it has consequences for the rest of us."
Such human needs likely explain why few nations have documented a reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss, the convention's sole target for 2010 set eight years ago, he added.
"The target itself didn't address the driving forces behind biodiversity loss, "Perrings said. "The 2020 targets do better."
The new targets-labeled "SMART"for "specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic and time-bound" -include an array of strategies that attempt to both directly and indirectly safeguard biodiversity. These include identifying and eradicating invasive alien species, eliminating overfishing and harmful incentives such as agricultural subsidies, and educating the public about the values of biodiversity.
Not enough
But it is not enough for the targets to be SMART, Perrings said. He and his international team argue in their paper that more emphasis needs to be placed on the real interests that people have in biodiversity, from its use for food and fuel, to its benefits for aesthetics and health.
"A lot of people have this impression that it's just about species,"said Frank Larsen, a conservation scientist with Conservation International, a nonprofit environmental group based in Washington, D.C. "We are losing species-and that's a big concern that we need to deal with-but we should not forget that nature supports human societies."
In fact, a 2002 study published in Science found that protected areas conserve benefits worth more than 100 times theircost, added Larsen, who was not involved in either paper.
Still, there are trade-offs to be made. It will not be in everyone's best interest to conserve species everywhere, and species that are needed for one set of services may differ from another set, Perrings said. Protecting a watershed requires a range of species with a variety of root systems, for example, while planting a monoculture of the greatest carbon-absorbing trees is best for sequestrating carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.
There are many other complex interdependencies between the targets, such as the dual targets of phasing out harmful subsidies and conserving 15 to 20 percent of terrestrial areas, note the researchers. Some targets will need to be implemented in sequence, conditional on the goal being achieved.
Other oversights highlighted by the team include the strict 10-year timeframe, which may not work across all 20 targets.
"Some things are just more urgent than others," Perrings said. "The problem of invasive species, including emergent zoonotic diseases, is probably not something we can wait 10 years to solve, while it will frankly take forever to make all people aware of the values of biodiversity."
Further, a changing climate and growing global population could alter conservation priorities over the next 10 years.
Below each of the new 2020 targets, delegates at the conference will create a set of indicators for use in measuring progress toward the goals. Perrings and his colleagues suggest that most of their recommended changes could simply be addressed here.
However, Larsen worries that the points laid out by the team may be too detailed and therefore distracting from the meeting's primary goals. "It's very important that we set these ambitious political targets and make world leaders agree upon them,"he said. "And then we can work out the specifics. Sometimes you can get lost in the details."
"We are losing nature fast and we are adding more and more people,"Larsen added. "The window of opportunity is now, so we need to act. This meeting is a very good time."
Code RED for biodiversity
Arizona State University EurekAlert 14 Oct 10;
International Year of Biodiversity's mounting losses mean Nagoya convention critical turning point
While not an outright failure, a 2010 goal set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for staunching the loss of the world's species fell far short of expectations for "The International Year of Biodiversity."
What does this mean for the 20 proposed 2020 goals being considered by the 10th conference of parties at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, on Oct. 18-29, 2010?
In the article "Ecosystem Services for 2020," published Oct. 15, 2010 in the journal Science, some of the world's foremost biodiversity experts assembled by the Paris-based international program of biodiversity science DIVERSITAS offer a strategic approach to the 2020 goals -- one that incorporates trade-offs, timing and complexity.
Feasible goals
"While there is still time, it is critical to design the 2020 targets and their indicators in ways that give them a reasonable chance of success," argues ecoservices expert Charles Perrings of Arizona State University. The DIVERSITAS team, led by Perrings, includes ASU scientist Ann Kinzig and 16 other leading biodiversity experts from the United States, Argentina, Sweden, Chile, Japan, England, France and Germany.
The team lauds the convention for increased efforts to address the most serious aspects of global change, climate and biodiversity, through pursuit of 20 "SMART" (specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic and time-bound) targets to be achieved by 2020. However, the group also argues that it is not enough for the targets to be SMART.
"The 2010 CBD goal was unrealistic," says Perrings, a professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and co-director of the ecoSERVICES group in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"And while the 20 proposed goals for 2020 are more specific about where to go to reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity, there are critical oversights that need to be considered by the Nagoya conference delegates."
For example, the 2020 target that "all people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably" seems unrealistic. In addition, a 2020 target for the sustainability of agriculture, aquaculture and forestry asserts that doing this will automatically assure conservation of biodiversity, yet scientific evidence does not support this, according to the authors. Both the extensive and the intensive growth of agriculture —expansion of the area committed to the production of crops or livestock, increased use of pesticides and herbicides—come at a cost to non-farmed species.
One issue with the 2020 targets, the authors point out, is that many of them are interdependent. Some are likely to be mutually inconsistent, meaning achieving one compromises achievement of another. Others are contingent, meaning achieving one is conditional on achievement of another. It will be important to adopt indicators that recognize the interdependence of targets.
"We are also fishing out oceans, one stock at a time. Often there are no real instruments for protection and those that do exist have no teeth. There are lots of reasons, reasonable ones, for people making private decisions that lead to biodiversity loss, but they cost us all collectively."
The journal article points out that the proposed 2020 CBD goals also need also to tap into the benefits that biodiversity provides to humanity, in addition to recognizing trade-offs between benefits.
Codes for success
The DIVERSITAS team assessed the 2020 targets and challenges to their implementation using the ecosystem services framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an effort led by the United Nations in 2001-2005 to "analyze the capacity of the world's ecosystems and assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being."
The authors' resulting roadmap for 2020 recommends a hierarchical approach, one that is sensitive to the timing and sequence of targets. Some targets concern issues that need to be addressed before 2020 (DIVERSITAS codes urgent targets "red"), and other targets concern issues that need to be implemented in sequence ("enabling conditions" are coded "blue"). Moreover, many of the traditional conservation targets (coded "green") involve trade-offs with red and blue targets that will play out over much longer timescales.
The 2020 targets to be negotiated at the Nagoya convention are a significant improvement over the 2010 target. They address the international community's traditional conservation goals – to reduce the pressures on biodiversity and to safeguard ecosystems, species and genetic diversity. But they also address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, its sustainable use, and the capacity and knowledge building that need to be done to if the targets are to be successfully implemented.
The scientists argue that while the 2020 targets could be strengthened, Nagoya could well be a turning point for the Convention on Biological Diversity. "The development of a strategic plan supported by targets, indicators and actions is a very positive step," Perrings says.
The convention, together with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also established in 1992, represent the commitment of nations to secure global commitments to address the most serious aspects of global change: climate and biodiversity. The UNFCCC was the focus of much attention in 2009. Combined with the establishment of an Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), to be brought before the U.N. General Assembly this session, Perrings and his team believe that the convention in Nagoya, Japan, may mark the first serious attempt by the international community to deal with the second of the world's two greatest environmental problems: biosphere change.
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