A policy brief from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) emphasizes that reversing the alarming rate of biodiversity loss requires a significant policy shift away from business as usual. The coming decade is of utmost importance for global governance of biodiversity, the authors stress.

The brief titled, ‘Biological Diversity: Protecting the variety of life on Earth,’ authored by Elsa Tsioumani and Asterios Tsioumanis, highlights recent findings that “nature is vanishing before our eyes,” and up to one million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. The brief notes the need for “transition pathways,” and reviews the negotiations to establish and further the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its protocols as the main forum for the international community to conserve biodiversity, use its components sustainable, and share fairly and equitably the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

The brief notes that the coming decade is of utmost importance for global biodiversity governance, and a failure to adopt and implement a post-2020 global biodiversity framework “may lead to irreversible biodiversity loss in the near future.”

The brief is the second in the ‘Still Only One Earth’ series from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team, which builds on the message of the landmark 1972 UN report, ‘Only One Earth,’ reminding humanity we have no other home but this planet. The series is being released in the lead-up to the 50th anniversaries of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and the UN Environment Program (UNEP), which will be marked in 2022.

The policy briefs assess the successes and shortcomings of five decades of global environmental policy, drawing on the environmental negotiation insights of the global ENB team. The briefs aim to guide future efforts to address the causes of climate change, support the sustainable management of natural resources, and foster fair and sustainable economies.

The first brief in the series, titled ‘Stockholm and the Birth of Environmental Diplomacy,’ by Pamela Chasek, considers the lessons held in the 1972 Conference as it launched a new era of global cooperation on environmental issues and paved the way for the concept of sustainable development and the birth of UNEP. [Publication: Biological Diversity: Protecting the variety of life on Earth] [‘Still Only One Earth’ policy brief series]