At a time when one million species are threatened with extinction, the urgent need to act to reverse the trend of global biodiversity loss by 2030 and to take better account of the links between the destruction of nature and the risk of pandemics was unanimously agreed upon by experts at the public hearing organised by the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, on Thursday 14 January.
The aim was to feed into the parliamentary work on the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, ahead of the COP15 (see other news).
Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), recalled that biodiversity loss is accelerating due to land-use change, climate change and wildlife trade.
“In the face of this emergency, we need to change our food, transport and energy systems and reduce our footprint on an unprecedented scale”, said Sabien Leemans on behalf of WWF. She regretted that the ‘European Green Deal’ has not been integrated into the new CAP and that its funding is insufficient (10% of the EU budget post-2020).
In order to ensure that the land and marine areas, once restored, are not degraded, she said that they should be integrated into the protected areas of the ‘Natura 2000’ network.
The challenges facing agriculture were discussed. Thomas Resl, Director of the Austrian Federal Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, stressed the need to look at the links between productivity and biodiversity, pointing out that organic production allows for greater biodiversity, but with a lower yield.
In Austria, the target of 25% organic had already been reached in 2019. For soya, sugar beet and cereals, with 2/3 of the yield compared to conventional cultivation. But for potatoes, the yield was half, with income losses of a third.
Katia Karousakis, Head of Biodiversity at the OECD Directorate, stressed the need to review regulatory policy and raise the ambition of economic and other voluntary instruments - biodiversity taxes, royalties, positive subsidies, payments for ecosystem services, on which 110 countries provide data - and to improve financing.
Global funding (public and private sources) is between $78 and $91 billion per year, according to the OECD G7 report. “Harmful or potentially harmful subsidies are five to six times higher”, she said.
‘One Health’. Peter Daszak, from theEcoHealth Alliance, who chaired the IPBES workshop on biodiversity and pandemics, recalled that the report published in October advocates for a preventive and global approach (see EUROPE 12592/24).
The policies being considered include the following two options: - bring together health and trade organisations and set up a high-level intergovernmental council; - the ‘One Health’ approach, bringing together human and animal health and environmental protection. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)