Biodiversity and ecosystems

The Sustainable Development Goal 15 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is devoted to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”.

At the Rio+20 Conference, Member States reaffirmed, through paragraphs 197- 204 of the outcome document, the Future We Want, that “intrinsic value of biological diversity, as well as the ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic values of biological diversity and its critical role in maintaining ecosystems that provide essential services, which are critical foundations for sustainable development and human well-being”. Member States also recognized “the severity of global biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems” and stress the negative impact that this situation has on food security, nutrition, access to water, health of the rural poor and people worldwide”.

Furthermore, the Future We Want reiterated the importance of implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention.

Biodiversity was discussed by the Commission on Sustainable Development on several occasions, and was one of the themes of the 2012/2013 two-year cycle.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg 2002, biological diversity was addressed in Chapter IV, paragraph 44, of the outcome of the Summit, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. The Summit also endorsed the target to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional and national levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth, which had some months earlier been adopted by the sixth meeting of the CBD Conference of Parties (COP).

Conservation of biological diversity is the subject of Chapter 15 of Agenda 21 which was adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in 1992, in Rio de Janeiro. On the same occasion, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was opened for signature and remained open for signature until 4 June 1993. By that time, it had received 168 signatures. The Convention entered into force on 29 December 1993, 90 days after the 30th ratification. The first session of the Conference of the Parties was scheduled for 28 November – 9 December 1994 in the Bahamas.

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