GLF Biodiversity Conference: and Biodiversity Loss, Which Interference with the Planet’S to Facilitate an Exchange of Jeopardize the Essential Goods Systems
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GLF Biodiversity Digital Conference One 28 - 29 World OCTOBER One 2020 Health Outcome Statement Photo by Fiston Wasanga/CIFOR Fiston by Photo Photo by Axel Fassio/CIFOR Key messages Convened 5,000 people across 148 countries and reached 35 million on social media, cultivating a global dialogue on One Health and sustainable landscapes Raised awareness of the One Health approach, establishing the link between ecosystem health and human health Highlighted the need to integrate One Health principles into the landscape approach, to foster stronger collaborations between the two communities Identified four pathways for transformative change: Building back better, placing people at the heart of conservation, meeting commitments, passing the baton to youth Provided policy recommendations on the power of landscapes to strengthen the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework This is truly a state of planetary emergency. It is not only about existential risk – we are running out of time. This is the decisive decade for humanity’s future on Earth. Johan Rockström Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor in Earth System Science, University of Potsdam All photos by Marlon del Aguila, unless otherwise credited GLF 04 Biodiversity 2020 We are confronting an existential crisis. If we do not solve the problems facing the planet, we are going to have a difficult time. Not that Mother Earth will care if we disappear, but it will be a very annoying process for us. Robert Nasi, Director General, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Managing Illustration by Josie Ford, studiojojo.co Ford, Josie by Illustration Director, CIFOR-ICRAF Introduction Acting on the urgency of the science, policy, corporate, these global crises, some 5,000 development and civil society Up to a million species are at risk of participants tuned in from 148 realms, including Elizabeth extinction in the next few decades countries for GLF Biodiversity: Mrema, Peter Daszak, Galina – and that loss of biodiversity could One World – One Health on Angarova and Benki Piyãko. lead to ecosystem collapse across 28–29 October 2020. The digital The online event was broadcast much of the globe, with massive conference, hosted by the Global live from GLF centers in Bonn, repercussions for human health Landscapes Forum (GLF), brought Germany and Bogor, Indonesia. and well-being. together a wide range of key actors GLF Biodiversity contributes to including scientists, policymakers, the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem financiers, Indigenous leaders and Restoration by engaging youth to explore ways to ‘build stakeholders to join a global back better’ from COVID-19 movement around ecosystem while simultaneously restoration to achieve the tackling the climate and Sustainable Development Goals. biodiversity crises. With the release of 15 white With the support papers and accompanying of NGO Nia Tero, sessions, GLF Biodiversity made Sparkasse an informed, unequivocal call for KölnBonn, and more ambitious action, including the German the widespread adoption of government, a One Health approach in the GLF biodiversity conservation and Biodiversity restoration. It also offered a range conference of policy recommendations to featured 261 further inform the post-2020 speakers Global Biodiversity Framework from across of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). GLF 05 Biodiversity 2020 Four pathways for interests of different actors. This involves balancing competing transformative change: Nature is not demands on land use, addressing to blame for potential conflicts between 1. Building back better the COVID-19 sectors and interests such as 2. Placing people at the heart of pandemic. Our nature conservation, agriculture conservation unsustainable and forestry, extractive industries, 3. Meeting commitments interactions with tourism, and infrastructure nature have created the 4. Passing the baton development. The landscape conditions for this situation. approach supports conservation Pathway 1: Building back by reconciling competing better demands and priorities among stakeholders. This is achieved GLF Biodiversity rallied through multistakeholder participants to develop a globally discussions and informed coordinated response to the negotiations with regard to human and ecological health issues ranging from land use Elizabeth Mrema, and resource use, to biodiversity, Executive Secretary, crises, integrating the One Health U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity and landscape approaches. ecosystem services, livelihoods and traditional practices. Speakers throughout sessions called for the widespread Participants agreed that by largely due to increasing human adoption of an integrated drastically transforming the encroachment into wildlife landscape approach. At the heart planet’s landscapes, humans habitats, driven by industries of efforts to maximize ecological are directly contributing to such as meat production, health (and the GLF’s mission), biodiversity loss, pollution agriculture, infrastructure, the landscape approach aims to and climate change – along logging and mining. These achieve optimal social, economic with the spread of zoonotic activities lead to increased and environmental outcomes diseases such as COVID-19. The contact between humans, by leveraging the synergies and emergence of new zoonoses is livestock and wildlife, which Participants 5,000 4,869 people organizations Academia 1266 NGO 1449 Financial institution 108 Government 491 IGO 608 Media 75 Private sector 166 Research 50 Other 656 Women Men Other 1 unit = 50 148 6 countries regions Africa 17% Asia 25% Australia, Oceania 2% Europe 30% Latin America 13% North America 13% GLF 06 Biodiversity 2020 Both humans and animals contribute to an impact on the world. However, humans are the ones who contribute incorrectly by exceeding their own needs. Shahid Naeem, E3B Professor, Chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University increases the risk of disease The biodiversity, climate and policymakers and the public. spillover from wildlife to humans. COVID-19 crises are symptoms This was a key aim of the They also drive land degradation of a significant ailment: our GLF Biodiversity conference: and biodiversity loss, which interference with the planet’s to facilitate an exchange of jeopardize the essential goods systems. Addressing the root ideas and proposals between and services that humans causes demands a coordinated diverse stakeholders to inform derive from nature, including effort across multiple sectors global policy. water, soil, clean air, energy and and disciplines at local, national carbon sequestration. and global levels. Building these The landscape approach alliances forms the basis of a and One Health One Health approach, which In a session that emphasized seeks to achieve optimal human, the role of local actors, the animal and ecosystem health Netherlands Environmental by recognizing the intrinsic Assessment Agency highlighted connections between all the need for policymakers three elements. to recognize the potential of Rebuilding our local-driven conservation and relationship restoration at the landscape with the Earth level. These are best positioned demands within landscapes to co-design bridging gaps nature-inclusive initiatives that between incorporate the needs and scientists, expertise of local communities. Such arrangements should be included in both national and global policy frameworks as vehicles for transformative change, speakers emphasized. GLF 07 Biodiversity 2020 How do we We need to tear down the We need to face reconnect with barriers between the public the planetary nature? We do it health community, the animal emergency using an by falling in love health community and the integrated approach to with what gives eco-health community. One Health. That means us life. Viruses don’t care about these that we have to avoid silo artificial barriers. approaches. Niria Alicia Garcia, Dennis Carroll, Carla Montesi, Indigenous leader and innovator, Chair of the Leadership Board, Director, Directorate General for U.N. Young Champion of the Global Virome Project Development and Cooperation, Earth finalist European Commission The COLANDS initiative showcased policymakers, scientists, youth for mining and oil and gas integrated landscape approaches and grassroots organizations, drilling, raising concerns that in action in Ghana, Indonesia local communities and the these developments contribute and Zambia through a new book private sector. to forest fragmentation, land released at the conference titled degradation and pollution. Operationalizing integrated Ecosystem restoration Many of these projects not only landscape approaches in the An essential step towards threaten biodiversity but also tropics. Early work in these stemming biodiversity loss hinder carbon sequestration landscapes aims to provide involves restoration of the and increase the risk of zoonotic evidence for future applications planet’s damaged and degraded disease transmission. of landscape approaches. In ecosystems. These notably include The True Nature Foundation Indonesia, for example, a landscape peatlands and rangelands – two drew attention to the potential approach has been applied to build vital yet oft-neglected landscapes of trophic rewilding, or collaborations in land management that sustain biodiversity, sequester reintroduction of missing wildlife between local communities, NGOs, carbon and provide multiple species into an ecosystem. Its the