- A new article published by leading environmentalists and heads of various global institutions discusses adopting a nature-positive lens.
- This would require Earth recovery starting in 2020 and embarking on a nature-positive path by 2030 in order to structure a full recovery by 2050.
- According to the authors, nature positivity would offer an overall goal for nature that would coincide with the mission of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its agreements to streamline sustainable development, climate and biodiversity.
- The article was published just days ahead of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) meeting, where parties will advise on the post-2020 CBD global biodiversity framework.
The world is awash with bad news about people's inability to care for the planet. But there is a way to change this narrative, says Canadian environmentalist Harvey Locke. He believes it's crucial to fight for a nature-positive world that focuses less on destruction and more on recovery.
Locke said in an interview with Mongabay, “We know we’re on a rocket ship headed for the abyss, and we need to completely reverse course. We need to point in the other direction, toward a positive solution. There’s no room for experimentation. We can’t just take an old crystal radio, the kind where you just twisted the dial a little to go from one station to another. It wouldn’t work. Instead of listening to the radio, we need to be on the internet; that’s the level of change we’re talking about.”
Locke is the lead author of a new paper published on April 30, days before the start of a six-week virtual meeting organized by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), an intergovernmental scientific advisory body to the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Guido Broekhoven, head of research and policy development at WWF, told Mongabay in an interview that the SBSTTA will provide guidance on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework at this meeting .
Broekhoven, who was not involved in the study, says “What will be discussed and recommended in the meetings over the next six weeks will be an incredibly important signal of a new level of ambition [and] of the global dimension of the biodiversity framework.”
The article, co-authored by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and leaders of various global institutions, argues that adopting nature positivity would provide a concise goal for nature, which aligns with the CBD's mission: living in harmony with nature. This would connect and streamline global agreements on biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development.
Locke says, “Our climate goal is very clear: it's called carbon neutrality , the tool that, with the right commitment, will get us to a 1.5°C warmer world. The Sustainable Development Goals are about social equity, but we've never lumped nature's needs into the simple idea that people around the world can be left behind. And that's what the idea of a global nature positivity goal aims to do.”
The article presents three goals for achieving a nature-positive world : nature recovery starting in 2020; the start of a nature-positive journey by 2030 (measured against 2020); and full recovery by 2050. The authors acknowledge that “The loss and degradation of parts of nature are an inevitable result of the continuing demands for food, energy, materials, transportation, and different stages of human development” but argue that society must act quickly to achieve nature positivity by 2030.
Broekhoven says, “There are about a million species threatened with extinction. And if we want to reverse that trend, we need to have a real ambition towards nature positivity by 2030. This is also putting us on the path to something almost everyone agrees on, which is living in harmony with nature by 2050.”
According to the article, achieving a nature-positive world would include actions such as slowing the extinction of endangered species, protecting at least 30% of land and water, restoring degraded landscapes, and shifting toward sustainable production and consumption patterns.
These actions would help create a more resilient and stable world, capable of "coping with disruptions and stresses without reaching tipping points," the authors state. As the world currently stands, humans have already pushed several Earth system processes (known as " planetary boundaries ") beyond safe limits, threatening to propel the planet into a new and unknown state that may not be as hospitable to humans.
Locke says, “We live on Earth, and we are ruining our home. We need to change and become more nature-positive . We need to change our relationship with others to become more balanced. And we need to change our relationship with energy to become carbon neutral . It's very simple.”
A fundamental correction, according to Locke, is to understand that society and the economy are entirely dependent on a healthy, functioning planet.
Locke says, “In the past, we thought the best idea of sustainable development was to find the right balance between economy, society, and the environment. But this is conceptually flawed.
The only reason the economy exists is to support human society. The economy has no life of its own. It means nothing outside of the human context. And the human context is not possible outside of a functioning Earth system. There's been a lot of confusion about this. And we say, 'Enough of the confusion, we have to save the place we live in.'"
Locke says one of the most exciting parts of this article is the collaboration between the heads of various global institutions, ranging from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to The Nature Conservancy to Business for Nature.
“I know of no other consensus paper like this and on this scale with such a variety of people and so much substance within it.”
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