ALL the world's governments have fallen short on pledges made a decade ago to protect wildlife, though cases of conservation show that the destruction of nature can be slowed, and even reversed, according to a United Nations report — the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO5) — published on Tuesday.
It found that the world had largely failed to meet the 20 different targets to safeguard species and ecosystems. Just six were "partially achieved".
The UN team and report authors said the study was meant to galvanise governments to take stronger actions over the next decade to protect the diversity of life.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) said a million species were at risk of extinction unless countries prioritised conservation.
About two thirds of the world's animals have vanished over the last 50 years, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report said last week. Malaysia has its share of sad stories.
Recently, Malayan tigers, which numbered 3,000 in the 1950s, have been classified as a critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with fewer than 200 left in the wild today.
And how could we forget the news last November of the demise of the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia due to cancer. The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the rhinoceros' species and once roamed across Asia as far as India, but their numbers shrunk drastically due to deforestation and poaching.
The WWF conservation group estimated that there were only about 80 left, mostly in Sumatra. With countries due to meet for a UN summit on biodiversity on Sept 30, and another next year in China, at which a new framework for managing nature for the remainder of this decade will be set, the GBO5 report underlines the need not just for stronger commitments in stemming a precipitous decline in wildlife, but also in seeing them through.
There is a major push being made for governments to collectively set aside 30 per cent of the planet's land and sea areas for conservation, led by the global Campaign for Nature.
Currently, about 17 per cent of the world's land falls into areas that receive some form of protection. The figure is more dismal for the marine and coastal areas. Scientists have said the world may need more than 30 per cent to survive, if not thrive.
However, the GBO5 report was not without bright spots. For example, the endangered Japanese crested ibis, which almost vanished, started to produce chicks in the wild after conservationists released captivebred birds.
In Pakistan, a programme is protecting the snow leopard by conserving Himalayan ecosystems.
In Malawi, a community-based project is replanting the Mulanje cedar, prized for its aromatic wood and resistance to termites and fungal diseases.
Another sign of progress is that while global deforestation was not reduced by at least 50 per cent, it did slow by a third over the last 10 years relative to previous decade.
And while a third of marine fish stocks were over fished, a higher proportion than a decade ago, stocks have bounced back quickly in areas where protections were put in place.
"We also see that governments have made efforts. And where they make those efforts, they deliver results—and that's where we get some hope," said David Cooper, lead author of GBO5 and deputy executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Without conservation efforts, the number of bird and mammal extinctions would probably have been at least twice as high during the 10-year life of the pact, the report said.
Concerns over the impact of industrial society on the natural world has escalated amid the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by a coronavirus that likely jumped from bats to humans in China.
The destruction of wild spaces increases the risk of other, possibly worse diseases emerging. If this was a school and these were tests, the world has flunked, said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the CBD which released the report.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, warned that, "from Covid-19 to massive wildfires, floods, melting glaciers and unprecedented heat, our failure to meet the Aichi Targets to protect our home has very real consequences. We can no longer afford to cast nature to the side. Now is the time for a massive step up, conserving, restoring and using biodiversity fairly and sustainably."
The writer is founding chair of IPBES and ambassador and science adviser to the Campaign for Nature