Healthy, diverse ecosystems are essential for the processes that support all life on Earth, including humans. However, as noted by the UN, this biodiversity is “declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history” and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating with one million species under threat.
Natural England, the government’s natural environment adviser, has said that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with nearly one in six species threatened with extinction. Natural History Museum scientists have concluded that only around half of the UK’s natural biodiversity remains intact.
This Insight looks at UK commitments to reducing biodiversity loss, within the context of the international Convention on Biological Diversity. In England, the Environment Act 2021 includes legally binding targets for the government that will help the UK to meet its international commitments.
An agreement to reverse global biodiversity loss
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992, aims to conserve global biodiversity and ensure it is used sustainably. There are 196 signatory countries including the UK.
Global progress in meeting the CBD’s aims so far has been limited. Signatories agreed a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 in 2010, which included 20 “Aichi Biodiversity Targets”. The plan also set an ambition to halve biodiversity loss by 2020. However, progress in meeting the targets was very limited and no country achieved the ambition of halving biodiversity loss.
The CBD published its fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook report in 2020. It concluded that five areas will need to be successfully addressed all together for global biodiversity loss to be reversed by 2050:
- enhanced conservation and restoration of ecosystems
- climate change mitigation
- action on pollution, invasive alien species and overexploitation
- more sustainable production of goods and services, especially food
- reduced consumption and waste
Goals for 2050
The CBD’s governing body meets every two years at a conference of the parties (COP). At the COP’s fifteenth meeting in December 2022, COP15, a new agreement, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) (also referred to as the Biodiversity Plan for Life on Earth) was reached. This set out four goals for 2050:
- to protect and restore nature and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems
- to prosper with nature using biodiversity sustainably
- to share all the benefits of the genetic resources of nature fairly, including with indigenous people and local communities
- to ensure the $700 billion per year in funding, mainly from richer to less developed countries, needed to reverse biodiversity loss
Interim targets for 2030
The 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework also set 23 targets for 2030 for all signatory countries. These include a target of achieving effective conservation and management of at least 30% of land and sea by 2030, usually referred to as ‘30 by 30’.
They also include a target of restoring 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland waters, and coastal and marine ecosystems by then. And reducing the net loss of the world’s most intact ecosystems to zero.
Each country’s commitments will be monitored through updated National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. Countries will also submit national reports on progress to the CBD’s governing body in 2026 and 2029.
UK progress on meeting international targets
The difficulties in addressing biodiversity loss were reflected in the UK’s 2019 report on progress. It found that the UK had only fully met five of the 20 Aichi targets, including expanding the network of protected nature sites and publishing a national biodiversity strategy. However, most showed insufficient progress. Particularly challenging were:
- reducing pollution
- protecting vulnerable ecosystems from climate change
- preventing extinctions and improving the conservation status of species
- restoring degraded ecosystems.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), a nature conservation charity, concluded in 2020 that governments across the UK fell most short of the targets “which actually make a difference for species or habitats”, calling the 2010s a “lost decade” for nature.
New domestic targets for England
In England the Environment Act 2021, and subsequent regulations, set legally binding biodiversity targets, which will contribute to meeting international obligations. The targets are:
- to reduce the risk of species going extinct in 2042, compared with 2022
- to create or restore 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats by 2042
- to ensure overall species abundance is increasing rather than decreasing by 2030, and increases by 10% by 2042, compared with 2030
This is an addition to the commitment the government has made to meet the CBD’s 30 by 30 target. In December 2023, Natural England summarised the measures the UK is taking to meet 30 by 30, which include creating a Nature Recovery Network and strengthening the remit of National Parks and National Landscapes to support nature recovery.
The Environment Act 2021 targets are supported by a series of interim targets (to 2028), as set out in the government’s 2023 Environment Improvement Plan. However the environmental watchdog, the Office of Environmental Protection, concluded in January 2024 that “as things stand the prospects of meeting key targets and commitments are largely off track” for biodiversity. This was because many policies were still in development.
As nature conservation is a devolved policy area, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own biodiversity targets and strategies. The four UK administrations published a joint UK Biodiversity Framework in May 2024, which aims to coordinate efforts to meet the UK’s international obligations.
The UK’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan
Following COP15, the UK government set an aim to publish its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan by May 2024, together with the devolved administrations, before COP16 in Colombia in October. However, the UK’s action plan had not been submitted at the time of writing. In May 2024, in a debate on biodiversity loss in Parliament Caroline Lucas (Green) raised concerns that the UK’s submission would be the existing Environment Improvement Plan instead of a bespoke document.
The new Labour government has set nature recovery as one of the five priorities for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). It has also stated that it intends to honour international agreements on biodiversity and that it will update the current Environment Improvement Plan.
About the author: Elena Ares is a researcher at the Commons Library specialising in biodiversity and nature conservation.
Image credit: Gordon Brown on geograph.org.uk, CC-BY-SA 2.0