A section of the Amazon rainforest stands next to soy fields in Belterra, Para state, Brazil, in November 2019. Efforts to save the world’s disappearing species have largely failed so far.
(AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The so-called post-2020 global biodiversity framework is a nature counterpart to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, and will aim to curb the decline of nature by 2050.
It’s usually good news when a once-scarce species starts to recover – unless it starts getting in humans’ way. An ecologist explains how science can help predict unwelcome encounters.
The Convention on Biological Diversity aims to achieve a world “living in harmony with nature”. This won’t happen if the plan goes ahead in its current form.
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (2017).
AAP
We may never know whether the pandemic began with a leak at the Wuhan lab. But even the possibility shows we need a universal biosafety code to prevent something similar happening in future.
Evidence shows that farms that share landscapes with wild nature, such as remnant forests and trees, benefit from the ecosystem services provided.
Planting strips of native prairie grasses on a farm in Iowa provides habitat for pollinators and protects soil and water.
Omar de Kok-Mercado/Iowa State University
The Earth is losing plants and animals at rates not seen in millions of years. Ecologists explain how protecting habitat on working lands – farms, forests and ranches – can help conserve species.
Wuilber Machaca, a quinoa farmer who lives in the Aymara community of Huancarani in Peru’s Puno region.
As the twin crises of climate change and Covid-19 continue to unfold, a traditional crop can help South American communities preserve biodiversity and their heritage.
Seismic exploration lines cut through boreal forest near Fort McMurray, Alta.
(Scott E. Nielsen)
The hope is that the biodiversity targets translate directly into what individual countries, cities, companies and even families can adopt as tangible actions.
Botswana’s elephants are officially an economic asset.
Ian Sewell/Wikimedia Commons
At an international summit in Egypt this month, nations will hopefully make progress towards recognising the economic value of wildlife and other environmental assets.
Brazil, home to the Amazon, is one of just five ‘mega-wilderness’ countries.
CIFOR
More than two-thirds of Earth’s remaining wilderness is in the hands of just five countries, according to a new global map. A concerted conservation effort is needed to save our last wild places.
Nature offers many benefits to people.
(Shutterstock)