Twelve of the world’s 17 most biodiverse nations, home to 70% of the planet’s species, are likely to miss the United Nations’ Oct. 20 deadline to submit plans for reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, a joint analysis by The Guardian and Carbon Brief found.
At the U.N.’s 2022 conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP15, nearly every country signed an agreement to protect biodiversity. A key part of the agreement calls for protecting 30% of the Earth’s water and land by the year 2030, or “30 by 30.”
Countries were expected to submit new strategies to conserve nature before the next conference, COP16 in Cali, Colombia, which runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. But of the convention’s 196 members, only 25 have followed through with the pledge in time.
Currently, only 8% of the ocean is under some form of protection, and about 18% of land, and around 1 million species are at risk of extinction.
The systemic failure to meet the key deadline is raising concerns that the goal of halting widespread species extinction and protecting a third of the planet will not be reachable.
Only five megadiverse countries, with at least 5,000 endemic species, submitted their pledges in time: Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico. The United States, considered megadiverse, has refused to ratify the agreement for more than 30 years.
All six Congo Basin countries, the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon, missed the deadline. Other key nations, such as India and South Africa, are also still missing their pledges.
Of the Amazon countries, only Suriname, holding just 2% of the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest, submitted an updated pledge.
Brazil, home to nearly 60% of the Amazon, says it’s still working on its plan. Braulio Dias, director of biodiversity conservation with Brazil’s environment ministry, said it would only be finalized toward the end of the year or early next year.
Even the host of the COP16 summit, Colombia, has delayed the submission of its biodiversity plan. The Colombian environment ministry said it organized more than 30 public consultations with Indigenous and local communities, which slowed down the process. Officials now plan to release the plan at the start of the summit.
Peru, which holds another significant portion of the Amazon, hasn’t yet given a timeline for submitting its strategy.
“Deadlines matter and countries should do what they say they are going to do, but the quality also matters,” Kristin Rechberger, CEO of Dynamic Planet, a company involved in supporting nature-based markets, told Mongabay by phone. Rechberger also sits on Mongabay’s board of directors.
“Until we really stick to our commitments, things are going to continue to be dire for nature,” she added.
Banner image: There are more than 3,000 greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) in the wild today, up from just 12 in the early 1900s, thanks to conservation efforts. Image by USAID (Public domain).
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