The authors of “Set ambitious goals for biodiversity and sustainability” are not kidding around:
In response to the goals proposed in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) made public by the CBD, we urge negotiators to consider three points that are critical if the agreed goals are to stabilize or reverse nature’s decline. First, multiple goals are required because of nature’s complexity, with different facets—genes, populations, species, deep evolutionary history, ecosystems, and their contributions to people—having markedly different geographic distributions and responses to human drivers. Second, interlinkages among these facets mean that goals must be defined and developed holistically rather than in isolation, with potential to advance multiple goals simultaneously and minimize trade-offs between them. Third, only the highest level of ambition in setting each goal, and implementing all goals in an integrated manner, will give a realistic chance of stopping—and beginning to reverse—biodiversity loss by 2050.
What does “the highest level of ambition” mean for genetic diversity? Check out the handy table provided.
And there’s also a box listing the red lines for the ecosystem, species and genetic diversity goals. This last should:
- Include maintenance of genetic diversity—the raw material for evolutionary processes that support survival and adaptation; population size is not an adequate proxy for this.
- Be set at the highest ambition level (e.g., above 90% of genetic diversity maintained).
- Focus on populations and their adaptive capacity and include wild species and domesticated species and their wild relatives.
No word in this paper on how to measure whether that 90% figure is being met and maintained, for all species. That’s a whole other story, that some of the authors are actively working on. Fingers crossed.