A life in harmony with nature - that is the official vision of the Biological Diversity (Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on Biological in Japanese in 2010). This scenario should become a reality by 2050. However, the development is still in a completely different direction: biodiversity worldwide decreases dramatically. In order for this to change soon, one hopes at the 15th biodiversity congress of the United Nations (COP15), which will open on the evening of December 6, 2022, for a new worldwide nature conservation agreement. In Montreal Canada, it is to be agreed that 30 percent of the land and the sea area on earth will be under protection by 2030 in the future. In the fight against the sixth great mass extinction, this 30x30 goal is attributed to a similar importance as to the historical climate target, which was proclaimed in Paris in 2015, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Accordingly, no other of the 22 individual goals in the draft of the new agreement has been lobbied for more than for 30x30. Significantly more than 100 countries around the world have joined a "coalition of the Highly Ambitious for Nature and People" proclaimed by France and Costa Rica in order to anchor the 30 percent target in an agreement. From the USA to Burkina Faso, from Sri Lanka to Norway, governments have committed themselves to this goal – some have even declared its adoption as a red line for their approval of an agreement as a whole.
Because the negotiations are not individually coordinated with the goals, but the decision is made in the package at the end. The consensus principle applies. If a new World Nature Agreement comes about, the 30 percent goal will certainly be included. The big question is probably not whether almost a third of nature will be legally protected on the planet in the future, but how effective this protection is effective. Because whether the 30 percent goal can meet expectations is decisive due to its specific design.
Is the 30 percent goal enough?
"30x30 alone will not solve the biodiversity crisis, but it would advance species conservation enormously and at the same time make a great contribution to climate protection," says Georg Schwede, the European head of the Campaign for Nature alliance. In recent months, his organization has been working behind the scenes with governments and institutions around the world to promote the inclusion of the 30 percent target. "If 30x30 is implemented effectively and in the strategically selected areas with a lot of biodiversity, it can be a big success – but only then," says Swede.
Some scientific studies come to the conclusion that 70 percent of all animal and plant species threatened today could be preserved from extinction, the particularly species-rich areas were put under large-scale protection. Climate protection would also benefit from a large protected area network. According to calculations, ecosystems of this size could store around 500 gigatons of carbon dioxide-this corresponds to 100 times the annual output of the United States.
However, several researchers see the 30 percent area protection as a lower limit or even as too little to stop the largest exploratory cord in the history of mankind. In scientific literature, there are demands for protection of at least 30 percent of over 70 percent of the land and sea area of the earth, writes Stephen Woodley, leading protective area expert at the International Nature Conservation Union IUCN. Therefore, 50 percent protection of the earth is an average that has a lot of support in research.
The French government's advisers share this assessment. In an analysis for the Paris Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the experts of the Biodiversity Research Institute FRB come to the assessment that 30 percent should be "clearly a minimum target". They propose to their government to press for an addition in the negotiations "to put at least 30 percent and in the long term 50 percent of the planet under protection". At the very least, however, it must be pointed out that "this is an intermediate goal that points to a more ambitious goal that is essential for the medium- or long-term survival of humanity".
What does protected area mean?
A protection exceeding 30 percent could not be enforced politically, even conservationists admit. Even the targeted area share would correspond to about a doubling of the protected area on land and a quadrupling in the sea compared to today's level worldwide. Instead of pushing for an even larger protected share in the negotiations, conservationists and government negotiators therefore consider it more important to anchor clear criteria for protected areas in the agreement. They would have to ensure that biodiversity really takes precedence over all other interests in the protected areas. In addition, the protected regions would really have to include the most species-rich habitats and regions of the earth, and in addition, sufficient money would have to be made available to guarantee effective protection. For example, scientists have calculated that a total of more than 1.5 million rangers are needed to protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface. Currently, there are less than 300 000. However, there is little concrete in the previous draft of the agreement regarding the criteria and their implementation.
In the 30 percent network, one would particularly like to include areas with "special importance for the biological diversity". They should also be "ecologically representative and well networked". In this context, it is questionable that a wording that has intended to protect strict protection for ten percent within the 30x30 areas has now flown from the draft contract. On the other hand, an apparently harmless term that alerts conservationists - namely "sustainable use" is an apparently harmless term. "This makes it difficult to designate usage -free areas and opens the door and gate sector in the sector of deep -sea fishing and deep -sea mountain construction," criticizes Jannes Stoppel from Greenpeace. It is also clear to Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke from the Greens that protection areas do not have to be free of human activity in the future. It is now important to prevent "Greenwashing and Paper Parks" in Montreal, i.e. pseudo -shell areas that are only on paper and do not fulfill a protective purpose.
Paperparks in Germany
The long -time nature conservation politician Lemke knows that such "paper parks" can be found on her own front door. One of them is the coast of our country. The German North and Baltic Sea should actually be on the way to the ecological presentation area. The opposite is the case. "We are a prime example of the fact that 30x30 percent protection alone does not help," says Kim Detloff, who heads the marine protection area at NABU. The 30x30 goal is overfilled on the two German coasts- 45 percent of the German sea waters from the North and Baltic Sea are part of the European Natura 2000 nature conservation network. "The area protection is there and yet our nature is bad," says Detloff.
This can be seen, for example, at the environmental goals of the marine strategy framework directive, all of which have been torn. A particularly blatant example of the ineffectiveness of protection is the pork whale. Its population in the German North Sea has halved in the past 20 years. The marine mammal up to 1.80 meters long is not any resident on the German coast. He is a "flagship", the needs of which the protective area concept was geared.
The situation on the coasts is so desolate that the European Commission is even pursuing infringement proceedings against Germany for inadequate implementation of Natura 2000. The reason for the disastrous result is obvious. "There are almost no restrictions in the protected areas, with the exception of plant construction, everything is allowed," says Detloff. In other words: For example, you are not allowed to build drilling platforms or wind turbines, but there are no restrictions for fishing or shipping yet.
Lemke knows the situation on site well. She also ensured that the coalition agreement laid down to keep ten percent of the German AWZ - the 200 nautical mile zone off the coast - of harmful use. "This is an important signal that shows that nature conservation policy is hopefully taken seriously," says Detloff, who sees the condition of the German coasts as a warning example of the negotiations in Canada: "Our situation shows that it is about the quality of the quality Protection areas goes. "
Biodiversity already no longer exists in many regions
On the global scale, however, the rich countries of the north decide on the preservation of biodiversity. After centuries of industrial and agricultural industrial exploitation, they are very impoverished. 80 percent of global biodiversity can be found today at only 20 percent of the planet's area - mostly in the tropical regions. There it is above all the indigenous communities that use nature and with it. For the success of global nature conservation, it is therefore considered to be central to consider their interests and to recognize and strengthen their role as "keepers of nature".
The areas inhabited by indigenous communities such as the Amazon rainforest or the remaining intact forests Papua New Guinea or Indonesia will have to be protected for more than 30 percent in order to obtain their ecological functionality and biodiversity. The Amazon rainforest, for example, would be lost with 30 percent protection. »He would no longer be able to regulate his climate himself and would convert into a dry forest. It needs 60 to 80 percent of its area to climate control, «says Hans Otto Pörtner from the World Climate Charter IPCC. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon also call for an agreement that protects 80 percent of the Amazon.
It takes more than just 30x30
Even if the 30 percent goal is provided with effective detailed regulations and is implemented in partnership with the main affected, it should not be sufficient to achieve the goal of the agreement, to stop the loss of species and habitats over the next decades and to stop and develop to reverse. "In the overall package of the goals, we have to address all drivers of the loss of biodiversity," says Inka Gnittke, head of the German negotiation delegation in Montreal. "If there is a gap in just one area, it doesn't help us overall." In addition to the 30x30 goal, the endeavor to renaturalize 20 percent of the damaged ecosystems in the next few years, to the core demands with which Germany Gnittke emphasizes. The goal of significantly reducing the burden on the environment with plastic, pesticides, pollutants and fertilizers is also important. Gnittke does not want to pull red lines: "But it is clear that as a European Union, we have to come out of the negotiations with an ambitious result," she says.
