I’m currently attending the 2010 International Congress for Conservation Biology in Edmonton, Canada. I thought it would be good to tweet and blog my way through on topics that catch my attention.
—
Yesterday I attended one memorable presentation by Bastian Bomhard of the United Nations Environment Programme‘s (UNEP) World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC). He provided some sobering statistics.
The opening statement in the background section of the Convention on Biological Diversity‘s (CBD) 2010 Biodiversity Target reads:
“In April 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed themselves to achieve by 2010 a significant [my emphasis] reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth.”
Suffice it to say that we have failed to meet the target.
I won’t dwell too long on the fact that ‘…a significant reduction…’ is utterly meaningless, subjective and a useless policy tool (in my opinion) because it cannot be quantified as stated, Bastian did tell us that we failed even to obtain a ‘reduction’.
More specifically, parties to the CBD 2010 target agreed in 2010 to protect at least 10 % of the world’s ecological regions (ecoregions) by 2010 — almost half of the world’s terrestrial ecoregions do not meet even this modest proportional protection.
Another sobering fact is that the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), the organisation who “… aims to prevent extinctions by identifying and safeguarding key sites where species are in imminent danger of disappearing”, lists nearly 600 sites worldwide, and only 35 % of those are completely protected. On average, only 42 % of each AZE site is protected.
Also, of BirdLife International‘s 11000 worldwide Important Bird Areas, only 29 % are completely protected, and on average only 39 % of each site is protected.
On the positive side perhaps, although we haven’t yet succeeded in achieving the CBD’s modest target for most ecoregions, there still is an increasing number of protected areas over time (e.g., the World Database on Protected Areas lists over 130000 separated protected areas). So I guess our efforts are achieving something.
The greatest increases haven’t, contrary perhaps to popular opinion, been in the developed world – developing nations lead that particular pack. Also, Latin America now has some of the highest levels of protection worldwide.
Clearly we have a lot of work to do.
ConservationBytes.com 
[…] is highly variable in that regard, there’s little contention among conservationists that we do not yet have enough of them to conserve biodiversity effectively, especially in the oceans that cover some 70% of the […]
LikeLike
[…] failed to arrest the global decline of biodiversity, and even our protected areas are gasping, with about half of tropical protected areas losing […]
LikeLike
[…] telling people how bad things really are clearly hasn’t worked – across the board, not one, single, broad biodiversity metric around the globe shows improvement (continued deterioration is the theme of the day). So we’re now turning that frown […]
LikeLike
[…] surrounding protected areas, tropical protected areas do just fine. Globally, we still have a huge gap between the areas now protected and what should be protected, and our policies surrounding the […]
LikeLike
[…] We, as conservation biologists, must accept the fact that we have largely failed – biodiversity is still being lost at an alarming rate despite decades and decades of good science, sound evidence-based policy recommendations and even […]
LikeLike
[…] year as a result of the 2010 target, to “reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity” by this year. The target was not met, as rates of loss are either steady or increasing. Perhaps a greater cause for concern is that […]
LikeLike
[…] the two realizations above may contribute to a significant third item: While there has been an increase in the number of protected areas around the globe, little […]
LikeLike
[…] of ‘experts’ in returning truth, Stuart Pimm‘s advocacy of scientific advocacy, Bastian Bomhard‘s sobering account of our failure to meet the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity […]
LikeLike
thanks for attending my talk. here are a few corrections:
Ecoregions: almost half of the world’s terrestrial (not most; this applies to marine ecoregions which i didn’t talk about) ecoregions do not meet even this modest proportional protection
IBAs: on average only 39 % (not 30 %) of each site is protected
The greatest recent increases haven’t, contrary perhaps to popular opinion, been in the developed world (not developing world; typo)…
Amy has already picked up another typo.
;-) b
LikeLike
Obviously my notes weren’t that flash. Will update. Thanks.
LikeLike
Success of Protected Areas!
I noticed that your number of protected areas in the WDPA was missing a 0.
I am happy to say that for several years now, the WDPA has had over 130,000 PAs and as of today the WDPA contains exactly 147, 897 PA’s!
LikeLike
Thank you, Amy. Rushed post written at 05.00! I’ll update the article.
LikeLike
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ConservationBytes and ConservationBytes, ConservationBytes. ConservationBytes said: Failure of the CBD 2010 targets: http://wp.me/phhT4-15K […]
LikeLike