At the end of the European Development Days (EDD), the European Commission’s annual showcase of European development policy and forum for international debate, a high-level international panel of experts on biodiversity presented its recommendations on Wednesday 16 June for the EU to work with developing country partners to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises, while ensuring green growth for people around the world.
This fourteenth edition of EDD (15-16 June) was devoted to two themes: a green economy for people and nature, and the protection of biodiversity and people, against the backdrop of the European Green Deal.
The recommendations cover the conservation of critical ecosystems, the restoration of degraded lands, safe and sustainable food systems, and the legal, safe and sustainable use of wildlife - all while including health and climate dimensions as well as cross-cutting issues such as global governance and sustainable finance.
They are a contribution to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15, China, in October), which should lead to a post-2020 global framework (see EUROPE 12737/5).
“These recommendations will help shape the political debate ahead of COP15”, said Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen. She stressed their importance “at a time when the EU is defining its programming priorities” for European aid to third country partners under the single financial instrument ‘Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation’ (NDICI - ‘Global Europe’) of the EU’s 2021-2027 budget (see EUROPE 12737/4).
Some of these recommendations include:
Conservation of critical ecosystems: protect 30% of terrestrial and marine areas and reduce deforestation and degradation of tropical forests by 75% by 2025 and by almost 100% by 2030.
Restoring degraded land: a target of 300 million hectares to be restored by 2030, generating ecosystem services worth an estimated €8 trillion and removing up to 26 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Safe and sustainable food systems: helping small-scale farmers and fishermen in Africa and around the world to improve the productivity, sustainability and resilience of food systems, by supporting efforts to implement agri-environmental and regenerative farming approaches on 30-50% of agricultural land.
The EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, presented in May 2020 as part of the European Green Deal, aims to address both the crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change in Europe and globally (see EUROPE 12491/2).
See the report of the High Level Group published by the European Commission: https://bit.ly/3wBzNvV (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)