This past month, scientists and delegates from some 180 different countries met in Cali, Colombia to discuss global biodiversity concerns. Known as the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16, for short), the conference collected researchers, diplomats, and innovators to tackle some of the most pressing current challenges faced by our planet.
The most reported result from this conference was based around trees: in an update by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature researchers found that 38% of the world’s trees are at risk of extinction. The conference focused on this evidence, as it is directly connected of all other types of biodiversity: “Trees directly underpin the survival of so many species…thriving, naturally diverse forests are essential in mitigating both climate change and biodiversity loss, and as such solutions for one crisis often have mutually reinforcing benefits for the other.”, said Dr. David Hole, one of scientists at the conference.
Reports also circulated around the conference that the iconic Western European Hedgehog is not denoted as “Near Threatened” despite recent conservation efforts and advocacy. Researchers point towards the reduction of agricultural land in Europe.
Much of this evidence suggests what some scientists have been arguing for a while: that Earth is on its way towards the sixth mass extinction in history. The high level of threatened species points to the fact that a high percentage of Earth’s biodiversity is being lost, as currently, the species extinction rate is estimated between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates. Researchers point towards a high level of agricultural development, as 90% of all deforestation comes from clearing land for farming and 70% of the planet’s freshwater use.
There are, however, several promising policy solutions that came from COP16, the most novel of which was a new way to pay for conservation. Currently, conservation is largely supported by governments and nonprofits, as many corporations might not see maintaining biodiversity as economically viable. This proposal suggests differently: it calls for companies that make money from genetic information being stored in databases to pay for a fund that supports biodiversity conservation. The justification rests in the fact that genetic research companies store digital sequence information, which can be kept in large databases and used for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics research. These companies benefit from the natural biodiversity of the Earth, and therefore have a responsibility to project it. While the fund is voluntary, stating that companies “should” contribute, it does offer a new push towards the privatization of biodiversity efforts, and a major step for this plan that has been in discussion since 2022.
A main argument for this effort is that it may alleviate some of the pressure for struggling economies to fund conservation efforts at the expense of industry expansion. “If we’re now expecting countries whose economies have been wrecked by climate change to take loans for their biodiversity finance, it’s almost like running into someone’s car, wrecking their car and offering them a loan to go fix their car,” said Jiwoh Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s environment minister. While the United States is not an involved party in the treaty, it does support the treaty and supports voluntary contributions to the fund.
The conference also gave more power to Indigenous people who will now have a body that will give them more of a say over negotiations. The goal is to increase the space for traditional knowledge to take a place in conservation efforts, and to ensure that locational important to tradition are preserved as well.
