The draft agreement negotiated at the World Conference for Biodiversity in Canada plans to increase the area of protected areas.
by perrine mouterde
Protect, by 2030, 30 % of the land and seas on the planet. It is undoubtedly in terms of this objective that the success of the United Nations on biodiversity (COP15) will be evaluated, at least in part, the success of the work is starting to start Wednesday, December 7 in Canada. This meeting, which brings together some 15,000 people in Montreal, must lead to the adoption of a new world framework to put an end to the destruction of the living.
Of the twenty-two targets of the draft agreement, target 3, which provides for an increase in the area of protected areas, is still far from consensus. But, at a time when the final stretch of negotiations begins, it still benefits from weight assets. First of all because the formula is simple and effective. “This is the easiest target to understand for the general public and for politicians, I therefore think that there will be monstrous pressure to make it succeed,” notes Gilles Kleitz, president of the protected area of the French committee From the International Union for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity Expert to the French Development Agency.
“Protected areas are the visible part of conservation, confirms Didier Bazile, Biodiversity Mission Manager at the Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD). For states, increasing their surface is an easy way to Show that they are inclined to protect biodiversity. “
Resist the fragmentation of habitats
Sign of political enthusiasm, more than 110 states, out of the 196 parties to the Convention on the Biological Diversity of the United Nations, have already displayed their support for “30 × 30” by joining the coalition of high ambition for nature and peoples. Launched in January 2021 and co-chaired by France, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom, this alliance now brings together countries from all continents. In the previous decade, out of the twenty “Aichi objectives” adopted in 2010 to stop the erosion of biodiversity, the target aimed at protecting 17 % of land and 10 % of the seas by 2020 is one The only ones to have recorded considerable progress – the objective concerning land spaces was achieved in 2021 and 8 % of marine spaces are now preserved.
Angular stone of conservation policies, protected areas have also demonstrated their usefulness to resist changes in land use and the fragmentation of habitats, which constitute the first threat factor for species and ecosystems . Result, it is half of the planet that scientists now call to place under protection status, while 75 % of the terrestrial surface has already been altered by human activities.
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