Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, including Aichi Biodiversity Targets

There should be a vision of how to deal with the root causes of biodiversity loss for which responsibility lies outside the ministries of the environment and the CBD.
submitted by Anonymous

A variety of statements and commitments have been adopted by international conservation institutions that, directly or indirectly, concern the linkages between conservation and poverty reduction. What is currently lacking is an overarching principle that sets out clearly the expectations on conservation organisations and agencies with regard to the effects of conservation activities on the poor. Such a principle would provide a clear and supportive framework under which more specific commitments and guidelines (whether focused on individual countries, ecosystem types or areas of conservation activity) would find a place.

The SGLCP is proposing the following principle for inclusion in the revised strategic plan and the replacement biodiversity target.

• In situations where conservation activities affect people at the local level, those activities should strive to contribute to poverty reduction and, at the very minimum, should do no harm.

Replacement biodiversity target:
The SGLCP propose that the revised biodiversity target should include the commitment that ‘where conservation activities affect people at the local level, those activities should strive to contribute to poverty reduction and, at the very minimum, should not harm the livelihoods of the poor’. This commitment would represent a significant improvement on the looser formulation found in the 2010 target. It sets out in a clear and general way, the responsibilities of conservation in relation to poverty reduction.

Revised Strategic Plan:
The SGLCP propose that the revised Strategic Plan should include the following objective: ‘Where conservation activities affect people at the local level, those activities strive to contribute to poverty reduction and, at the very minimum, do not harm the livelihoods of the poor’. If the revised Strategic Plan retains the structure of the existing plan (but see below in response to 16.2), then this objective could appear under either Goal 1 or 3.

The submission was made on behalf of SGLCP (Steering Group on Linking Conservation and Poverty), endorsed by the following individuals who are members of the group: Barney Dickson, David Thomas, Dilys Roe, Mochamad Indrawan, Muhtari Aminu-Kano, Phil Franks, Robin Sharp, Bettina Hedden-Dunkhorst.

submitted by Anonymous

One of the aspects that should be reinforced in the future SP of the CBD is South-South cooperation, always as a complement to North-South and triangular arrangements. Technologies developed in the global South are often better adapted to other developing countries (particularly those with similar natural, institutional, cultural and geographic circumstances), because the complex problems they address have very similar root causes. They can also be cheaper to implement, and can more easily lead to lasting capacity in the receiving country (in fact, most successful exchanges occur both ways, i.e. both countries benefit by benchmarking each other's strenghts). In a world that becomes increasingly multi-polar and regionally organized, more countries hold important experiences that could be leveraged through south-south collaboration. In this sense, I'd like to suggest that specific mechanisms be foreseen in the next SP to promote south-south exchanges in all CBD activities (expert meetings, SSC fora at the margins of CBD meetings, reports, in-depth reviews, etc), for all programmes of work and activities.
submitted by Anonymous

IDENTIFYING AND MEASURING THE DRIVERS OF BIODIVERSITY LOSS:

The new Strategic Plan should identify and address specific drivers, including policies and practices that result in biodiversity loss. Many of the main drivers of biodiversity loss such as climate change, loss and degradation of habitat, overexploitation of fisheries and marine resources, invasive alien species, and illegal trade in wildlife are directly related to specific sectors of government such as forestry, fisheries, transport, energy etc. Therefore identifying and measuring the impact of these drivers at the national, regional and global level will assist with mainstreaming biodiversity into all sectors.

This submission reflects the shared views of BirdLife International, Conservation International, IUCN – World Commission on Protected Areas, IUCN Countdown 2010, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund for Nature, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.


submitted by Anonymous

The Strategic Plan should be an inspiring, relevant global framework to stimulate action across a wide range of institutions, organizations and elements of society. As such it needs to start with a broad, overarching goal or vision. This overarching goal should describe the desired future state and be framed in a positive way.

The overarching goal is captured to some extent in the current mission statement – but this needs to be expanded beyond protection of biodiversity in the interest of poverty alleviation. It should be a positive statement that seeks to ensure healthy global biodiversity as a prerequisite to improving the quality of life for all people now and future generations. The overarching goal should be broad, qualitative and flexible, leaving the door open for the development of either qualitative or quantitative targets at different and more meaningful geographic scales (i.e. national, sub-national, local).

The current plan describes the issue. This section should be included in the revised Strategic Plan, after the Overarching Goal. However, it needs to be rewritten taking into account advancements in knowledge and thinking since 2002. The links between biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services, the need for preventative action when biodiversity loss seems imminent, the importance of focussing on restoration where biodiversity loss has already occurred, and the difficulty in effectively assessing the state of biodiversity and clearly linking it to drivers are all part of the issue.

The world has changed since the first strategic plan. New developments such as the global economic crisis, the greater certainty and acceptance of climate change since the release of the Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC in 2007, and the “One, World, One Health” Initiative provide opportunities to reinforce the links between the economy, climate change, health and biodiversity. These developments also have the potential to exacerbate biodiversity loss if organizations charged with biodiversity conservation do not become engaged. New information from reports released since the current strategic plan was developed, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Report should be drawn upon, as should highlights of issues raised in the Second and Third Global Biodiversity Outlooks and the biodiversity sections of the Global Environment Outlook.

The challenges should focus on a few priority areas, such as the importance and difficulty of mainstreaming biodiversity, communicating the meaning of biodiversity and the consequences of biodiversity loss to all aspects of human well-being, including health, economic stability, poverty reduction and personal and national security. Particularly important is the need to prioritize work on climate change and biodiversity.

The Strategic Plan should continue to include a section on achievements under the issues section. An accounting of achievements is critical to motivating further progress.

Strategic Goals and objectives are the heart of all Strategic Plans and they should continue to be part of this one. There are currently 4 strategic goals. These needs to be more inspiring, at a higher level and should ensure that the link with human well-being is clear – i.e. better linked to achievement of the overarching goal. The strategic goals should provide a framework that links the wide ranging consequences of biodiversity loss with all aspects of human well-being, provides a better understanding of biodiversity loss, develops the means to mainstream biodiversity, and communicate its fundamental importance. They should also link directly to providing the framework to solve the issues identified in the ‘Issues’ section.

Some examples of the type of strategic goals needed are:
To improve human well-being now and for future generations through:
a. Maintenance of the full range of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity,;
b. Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of biodiversity;
c. Restoration of biodiversity where it has been lost;
d. Adaptations and mitigations to climate change that are sensitive to biodiversity impacts

Objectives should be aligned with each of the strategic goals, as is the case now. The revised objectives should be guideposts to diminishing risk and minimizing the impact of global biodiversity loss. They should inspire countries and organizations to work together and to invoke successful interventions at the national level. The objectives should lead to building robust and well-governed public systems that ensure the protection of biodiversity, preventing crises, promoting collaboration, providing a new focus on restoration of lost biodiversity including research that addresses restoration techniques that are practical and viable at local scales.

The revised Strategic Plan should shift its focus from process to implementation and results. The strategic objectives, following under the strategic goals, should be clear, measurable and meaningful, action oriented, directly linked back to the 3 objectives of the Convention.

Currently there is an appendix that lists obstacles to implementation of the convention. These are the same as challenges which appear in the issues section. As they are a long shopping list of obstacles we think it would be better to incorporate them into the challenges and shorten them. Many can be collapsed into the challenges already described above, such as mainstreaming and advancing knowledge.

The revised Strategic Plan should include the importance of better integration with the objectives of other international efforts such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, that should have mutually supportive activities. This is particularly important in the area of climate change, where the effects of decisions around mitigation and adaptation need to consider the consequences to biodiversity.

Some effective Strategic Plans include a section entitled “Guiding Principles”. The CBD has many lists of guiding principles under various decisions, including principles related to invasive alien species (Dec VI/23), the incorporation of indigenous and local knowledge (Dec VII/16), the use of the ecosystem approach (Dec VII/11), sustainable use (Dec VII/12), access and benefit sharing (VI/24), Impact Assessment (Dec. VIII/28) and Incentive Measures (VI/15). A synthesis and shortened version of these principles could replace the obstacles annex. These principles guide implementation of the Convention and giving them a more visible profile in the Strategic Plan could guide implementation of the Convention and the Strategic Plan by a wider range of players.

submitted by Jennifer Norris

Species are the most recognizable and widely accepted units of biodiversity conservation worldwide. To halt biodiversity loss it is clearly imperative to halt the loss of species, and to stave off further species extinctions. Excellent data exist to help nations prioritize where such extinctions are likely to next occur, such as information developed by the Alliance for Zero Extinction www.zeroextinction.org (including 63 of the world’s leading biodiversity conservation organizations), which identifies those sites where one or more IUCN Endangered or Critically Endangered species is/are confined to a single remaining location. The identification and protection of such irreplaceable locations should be an imperative of the CBD.
submitted by Mike Parr

Le plan stratégique doit être complètement ré-organisé et présenté en fonction des responsables de la mise en œuvre
En particulier
 Secrétariat de la CDB
 Agences des Nations-Unies
 Autres conventions et accords multi latéraux
 Agences de financement
 Organisations de coopération régionale
 Gouvernement
 Collectivités locales
 Organisations non-gouvernementales
 Entreprises
Chacune de ces parties devraient être subdivisée selon les secteurs d’activités (environnement, transport, énergie, habitat, agriculture, pêche, forêts, planification territoriale, etc.)
Il doit comporter pour chaque objectif et actions
 Les moyens à mettre en œuvre
 Son coût
 Les bénéfices attendus
 Des dates limites réalistes (qui pourraient être différentes pour les pays développés et les pays en développement)
Il doit inclure les questions émergentes (agrocarburants, fertilisation des mers) et prendre en compte les nouveaux programmes de travail (particulièrement ceux sur les espaces protégés les montagnes et les îles) et les programmes révisés (mer et littoral, stratégie mondiale des plantes, agriculture, forêts, etc.).Il doit renforcer les objectifs liés à l’information et la participation du public, particulièrement les communautés locales et autochtones ainsi que la partie sur l’éducation et la formation professionnelle
Il doit renforcer également l’importance de la recherche scientifique (taxonomie, inventaires, états de conservation, gestion et suivi de gestions, indicateurs) et prévoir un mécanisme de prise en compte des données de l’IPBES
Il doit inclure une prioritisation au niveau mondial et une méthodologie d’établissement des priorités régionales et nationales.
Il doit inclure des méthodologies d’évaluation de l’avancement de la mise en œuvre et des impacts notamment dans le domaine de la conservation de la diversité biologique et la réduction de la pauvreté
Il doit prévoir sa diffusion large, y compris sa traduction dans les langues des Parties.

submitted by Jean-Patrick LE DUC

To the interventions made by others I would like to add:
- explore direct ways in which integration of CBD objectives, sustainable development and human rights can bring about immediate significant progress in the implementation of the Convention. For example, analyse the extent of overlap between biodiversity rich area and the lands and territories of indigenous peoples (some data is available showing significant overlap, but global data is not readily available) and explore the extent of biodiversity-rich area that could be protected by recognising indigenous territorial and management rights. Some estimates point to 15-20% of the world's surface, so it is worth exploring.
submitted by Maurizio Ferrari

Specific targets are needed not just for state and response indicators, but for pressure indicators as well; biodiversity loss will be stemmed only if the drivers of this loss are addressed, and quickly. For example, in terms of the Ecological Footprint, at a minimum overshoot must be ended as quickly as possible. Ending overshoot is a necessary but not sufficient target, as the biosphere would then still be depleted due to many years of running ecological deficits. So additional targets need to be set to allow for the regeneration of depleted ecological stocks, and for reductions in the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere.
submitted by Oscar Mejia

Recent, relevant developments, related consequences and ways to deal with them. Practice-related and results-oriented language. Not only a "wish list", but ways and tools to get there (all by staying short and simple).
submitted by Anonymous