Excerpt – Plan to protect 30% of Earth divides and inspires at Cop15
The target is dominating at the biodiversity summit, but the problem of finding a balance between Indigenous peoples’ rights and conservation remains unresolved.
Originally published Dec.12, 2022 in The Guardian
“There are a growing number of coalitions around protecting these ecosystems. At Cop27, Brazil, the DRC and Indonesia announced a big three rainforest coalition and said they would coordinate at UN climate and biodiversity talks on their conservation. The incoming Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said that he would convene a pan-Amazonian meeting on its conservation soon into his time in office. Indigenous groups proposed a protected area to cover the world’s largest rainforests, equivalent to the size of Mexico, to be created by 2025 at the last biodiversity summit in 2018, known as 80 by 25.
Campaign for Nature is pushing for conserving at least 30% of land and sea by 2030, seeing it as a milestone, with its director Brian O’Donnell describing it as a “floor not a ceiling”, saying the world should be pushing towards 50%, an important step to achieving Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson’s vision of protecting half the planet for the long-term survival of humanity. When talking about the areas that need to be preserved, it has to include the most biodiverse-rich areas, with connections between them to avoid island conservation, he says.”
