On September 26th, the fourth edition of World Biodiversity Summit convened alongside the UNGA 79 and Climate Week NYC. The program focused on pioneering global public-private partnerships to address the urgent need for biodiversity restoration through nature-based solutions and nature-positive investments, bridging the climate and biodiversity agendas.
Paula Ehrlich was invited to speak on the panel, Taking Stock of Nature Goals: Mapping Progress Towards COP16. During that session, she discussed the tools and innovations that are helping to track biodiversity outcomes and national progress.
The Half-Earth Project is committed to advancing the successful implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework and 30×30 targets through:
- Provision of geospatial information and metrics about global biodiversity status and trends.
- Co-development of user-community-relevant tools that support decision-making and advance a global movement for biodiversity.
That all ties back to the core mission of the Half-Earth Project: Engaging people in knowledge about the living world.
With 30×30, the global community has set a target to preserve 30 percent of land and ocean for biodiversity. Our team is providing the user-specific decision support information to identify the network of places most urgently in need of protection; in other words, which 30 percent should be prioritized.
Later, a question was posed about the next crucial step for meeting the 2030 objective of halting and reversing biodiversity loss. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation believes there is an opportunity to leverage new suites of technologies, including those based on AI, to include historically marginalized or poorly understood Indigenous knowledge. The integration of Indigenous and local community insights further ensures successful stewardship of the places that are most critical for biodiversity and the people who call those places home. We can also leverage new technology to further develop dashboards for biodiversity monitoring and decision-making — dashboards that are customized, equitably accessible, and developed with geospatial data at a 1-kilometer resolution.
The Foundation was also well-represented by Alison Taylor, Chief Sustainability Officer at ADM. In the panel, Greening Supply Chains: Implementing Nature-Positive Practices from the Top Down, Taylor spoke to the importance of partnership and collaboration and the power of a unified voice:
“No one company, even if you’re on every continent and you’re moving commodities all around the world, can do all that alone.”
She also noted that a company’s commitment to conservation sends a signal — to suppliers, customers, and even competitors — about its priorities. This ripple effect is what can inspire a movement and drive more to do good for the planet.
This is why we believe private businesses have an essential role in achieving conservation success, and our partnership with ADM is a manifestation of that. Businesses can be forces for good, and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is ready to support action with the knowledge and tools to do it effectively.
The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is honored to be part of a movement working to ensure the long-term health of our planet. This can only be achieved through partnership and collaboration, so it was amazing to see so many, from different backgrounds, experiences, and industries coming together to build connection and take action.
If you missed these captivating panels, you can watch them here.
