[Coral-List] A Shared earth/shared ocean approach to conservation for 2021-2050 and the =?utf-8?Q?CBD=E2=80=99s_?=emerging Global Biodiversity Framework

[David Obura]

Dear colleagues,

We’re please to announce our new article in Science from an African group of authors brought together through the Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance, for a local-to-global approach for operationalizing the next set of biodiversity targets. The paper is of course highly relevant to coral reefs everywhere and I hope it can help promote locally-focused approaches and empowerment, strengthen the agency of communities and local actors, and improve effectiveness in existing protected areas and projects.

To access the paper directly: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6556/746

Free access via corresponding author link: https://cordioea.net/shared-earth-shared-ocean/paper/

Further information on the article and media/additional coverage are also available at: https://cordioea.net/shared-earth-shared-ocean/

For those of you involved in/with an interest in the discussions on the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework please send this to your national delegations and experts!! From 23 August the Open Ended Working Group will have its 3rd sitting – as we learnt with the Aichi Targets, its not so much about how smart or ambitious the targets are, but will we all invest in actually delivering them? This paper tries to emphasize the need for ACTION and being accountable to local needs and successes, aggregated to global levels – rather than vice versa.

For those involved in conservation – how can this help delivery of better outcomes?

For those involved in research – how can this work? what targets are necessary and meaningful locally? How can we connect from local to global targets? What indicators are required – not just of coral reef health, but of benefits and equity of access and use?

Happy reading!

David Obura – on behalf of the author team.



CITATION: Obura, D, Katerere, Y, Mayet, M, Kaelo, D, Msweli, S, Mather, K, Harris, J, Louis, M, Kramer, R, Teferi, T, Samoilys, M, Lewis, L, Bennie, A, Kumah, F, Isaacs, M, Nantongo, P. Integrating biodiversity targets from local to global levels (2021). Science vol. 373:746-748,  DOI: 10.1126/science.abh2234.

SUMMARY: Decisions to be made at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will shape biodiversity conservation approaches for the next 30 years, a critical time for the future of nature and people. Reflecting from our African perspective, we applaud the necessary increase in ambition to conserve nature (1), but we share alarm about the limited equity and justice in establishment of protected areas and impacts on people (2–6). Further, raising the burden of protection in the Global South while failing to address global economic drivers of biodiversity decline will only repeat and amplify historical cycles, and effort invested in conservation will be wasted. We see hope in new and diversified approaches to conserved areas (7) and the development of other, less formal conservation mechanisms. Here we offer a framework that can help to integrate these with improved conventional conservation approaches.


David Obura || CORDIO East Africa, #9 Kibaki Flats, Kenyatta Beach, Bamburi Beach, P.O.BOX 10135 Mombasa 80101, Kenya
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