At the 15th annual United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada, event organizers proposed a “historic” Global Biodiversity Framework to implement the “30-by-30” initiative globally.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will require a “whole of government” and “whole of society” approach to conserve 30% of “waters” and 30% of “lands” by 2030.
What’s the catch? Wealthier nations will be on the hook for poorer countries to meet these goals.
Participating nations will be required to give $20 billion annually to poor nations by 2025. When 2030 is reached, countries are expected to hand over $30 billion annually to developing countries.
The Associated Press reports:
The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework asks for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.
The Biden administration has similarly aligned themselves with their own 30-by-30 plan called “America the Beautiful.”
Incoming House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) criticized 30-by-30 in May 2021, lambasting the “America the Beautiful” plan as merely a catchy tagline without well-defined true conservation goals.
“They have not defined a baseline of current conservation practices, established metrics for measuring progress, or even provided a clear understanding of how they define the word ‘conservation,’’’ Westerman remarked. “Rather than setting a haphazard goal and locking up millions of acres of lands and water, the U.S. should focus on science-based, pro-growth and community supported conservation efforts with a measurable track record of results, solutions and success. True conservation is about managing our lands and waters for their environmental quality, not quantity, and it’s about following the scientific principles embodied in numerous federal, state and local fish and wildlife laws. This is truly the best path forward to ensuring we have a healthy environment that we will leave better than we found it.”
As I previously noted here at IWF, the U.S. already conserves well over 40% of public lands off-limits to multiple-use management:
According to the Western Conservation Principles report, over 30 percent of public waters and lands are already federally protected. They drew this figure from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Gap Analysis Project (GAP) on the Protected Areas Database of the U.S (PADUS).
Using available data on public lands comprising the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fishing and Wildlife, and U.S. Forest Service, here’s how much land is federally protected from any activity: 252,758,091 of 622,630,476 total acres. That comes out to 40.6 percent, not 12 percent.
As with other aspirational, whole-of-government and society plans with no serious oversight—including the Paris Climate Agreement—nations with poor biodiversity track records will fail here as they have with emissions reduction goals.
To see how IWF is fighting back against 30-by-30, go HERE.
