A 42% decline in land-based animal and plant species in Europe and Central Asia. 12 million hectares of forest in the world’s tropical regions lost in 2018. One million species threatened with extinction. These are a small sample of the sobering findings of a recently released 1800-page Global Assessment on Biodiversity.[1] This comprehensive study paints a bleak picture for a status-update on global biodiversity. It shows that unless we take urgent action now to restore the flora, fauna, and ecosystems upon which we depend, current and future generations are at risk.
IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that released the report, is a biodiversity version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It’s a scientific body, comprised of 150 international experts from 50 countries, which aims to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services, with the goals of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. Decision making should be guided by the best available science, and this report provides just that.
So what makes this report so significant?
Not only is this the first global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services since 2005, it’s also the first comprehensive, global report by the IPBES since its establishment in 2012. In addition, the report is the also the first scientific assessment to underline the connection between biodiversity and human rights. It firmly establishes the connection between nature’s contributions and human health, linking the loss of biodiversity to human health risks. Nature helps regulate diseases, reduce certain air pollutants, and provides us with food. Furthermore, ensuring human rights in conservation is identified as a leverage point for transformation towards sustainability.
This is not the first report to research the relationship between human rights and biodiversity, however. In 2017, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment released a report on human rights and biodiversity. The report states that “the full enjoyment of human rights thus depends on biodiversity, and the degradation and loss of biodiversity undermine the ability of human beings to enjoy their human rights.” It explores this relationship and identifies obligations for countries with respect to it. These include, among others: regulating private actors to prevent and reduce harm, and government actions to respect and protect the rights of those made most vulnerable by the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The Special Rapporteur’s report also articulates the value of a human rights perspective towards biodiversity. Loss of biodiversity impacts the full enjoyment of human rights, heightening the need to protect biodiversity and promote policy coherence and legitimacy across human rights and biodiversity governance frameworks. The IPBES report also identifies solutions and ways forward. One of the approaches echoed the Rapporteur’s report, “Inclusive approaches help to reflect a plurality of values and ensure equity (…) including through rights-based approaches, which recognize human and ecocentric rights.” Examples of rights-based approaches to biodiversity include public participation in decision making, pursuing gender-responsive policies, and recognizing land rights, such as those of local communities and indigenous peoples.
The vital importance of indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights, values, and views is also recognized in both reports, highlighting their critical role in nature restoration and conservation. In addition, the Global Assessment also reiterates that combatting gender inequality is one of the keys to unlocking transformative change towards restoring biodiversity.
Even though there is a well-establish link between human health and biodiversity, the relationship between human rights and biodiversity has not received as much attention. This offers us an opportunity to strengthen rights-based approaches to biodiversity. In 2020, the Parties to the UN’s most important international instrument dealing with biological diversity (the Convention on Biological Diversity) will adopt a new framework for action with 2030 targets that will succeed the current Aichi Biodiversity Targets. This framework is a crucial opportunity to ensure that human rights are adequately reflected in action plans to protect biodiversity. Communities should be empowered to drive efforts, to scale up policies seeking to protect biological diversity, and prevent the threatened unprecedented decline in biodiversity to meet the urgency laid out in the report released on Monday. The report shows there is still time to stop this catastrophe for biodiversity. A rights-based approach must be part of the answer.
By Jolein Holtz, Geneva-based Legal Intern
[1] The 40-page Summary for Policymakers was released Monday 6th of May. The full 1800-page report will be published later this year.
Originally posted May 8, 2019