A global agreement on Biodiversity cannot wait anymore.

The biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, Cop15 in Kunming, China, where world leaders were expected to strike a deal to halt and reverse the destruction of ecosystems by reaching a Paris-style agreement for nature was postponed until 2021 and now is likely to be delayed a fourth time as a result of the Omicron variant.

In the meantime, during the pandemic, the destruction of the world’s forests increased sharply. Dangerous levels of greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere as humans consume beyond planetary boundaries while the world’s governments have missed every single target they have set for themselves on averting the destruction of Nature.

“We’ll get it done. Come hell, high water … or Covid. When and how, I don’t know,” says Basile van Havre, co-chair of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) working group responsible for crafting the Cop15 agreement.

Honoring the Legacy of E. O. Wilson and Tom Lovejoy

The two naturalists helped to pioneer the field of conservation biology and remained determinedly hopeful that humanity would make better choices.

Nobel-winning stock market theory used to help save coral reefs

Portfolio selection rules on evaluating risk used to pick 50 reefs as ‘arks’ best able to survive climate crisis and revive coral elsewhere

The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) negotiations, concluding early next year, include a plan to nearly double protected areas to 30% of the planet by 2030. Joe Eisen and Blaise Mudodosi discuss whether the 30x30 target offers a false solution to the biodiversity crisis.

How can natural capital information add value to traditional environmental and social impact assessment in infrastructure projects?

For years, researchers have produced accurate techniques to track where people are damaging, protecting and restoring the world’s 1.03 billion hectares of primary tropical forests, which are vital tools to store carbon and protect biodiversity. But current monitoring systems fall short: They simply aren’t detecting trees outside of these closed-canopy forests.

Fortunately, a solution is here. Preliminary tree cover data developed by WRI shows where billions of these trees — previously invisible to governments, investors and the public — are growing across 1.4 billion hectares of Africa and Latin America.

Mark and Focus, Vol 4, Issue 2

Nature-based Solutions for Water Security

A new report from the World Bank has shown that economic growth is not sustainable unless renewable natural capital and human capital are treated with the same importance as traditional economic growth.