Strengthening Biodiversity Conservation for a Better Future

By Uromi Manage Goodale (American)

China harbors 10% of all plant species and 14% of animals on earth and is home to four of the world’s 36 biodiversity hot spots. It is considered as one of the 17 mega-biodiverse countries in the world. The transformation of the Chinese economy over the past four decades has been unprecedented in the history of the world. China has achieved remarkable progress in its fight against poverty, especially focusing on the rural poor and efforts to provide basic public services such as adequate food and clothing, access to compulsory education, basic medical care and safe housing. Living in China for the past nine years, I have experienced these transformative changes first hand. Today, it faces the dual, yet, strongly interlinked challenges of strengthening the protection of this rich biodiversity while continuing to prosper through rapid socio-economic development. To this end, China needs to take decisive action, creating novel paths towards sustainability. This action needs to be taken at all levels, from civil society, to business and government.

Driven by anthropogenic actions, the climate of the planet continues to warm at an unparalleled rate, affecting biodiversity, as well as threatening our very own existence on the planet. The recent report from the World Meteorological Organization, which examined mortality and economic losses from weather and climate extremes, has shown that climate disasters have increased fivefold during the period between 1970 and 2019. Thus, development has put pressure on the basic conditions, such as clean air, clean water, functional habitats and ecosystems, and native biodiversity.

Recognizing these challenges, China has strived to prioritize safeguarding its environment, and conserving its biodiversity through research and education. Indeed, as outlined in the review by Mi et al. in the National Science Review, based on the recent rapid progress of biodiversity research, China is well positioned to become a global leader in biodiversity research in the near future. Their review identifies three main priorities for future biodiversity research: (1) the ecology and biogeography of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountains, and that of subtropical and tropical forests across China; (2) marine and freshwater biodiversity; and (3) effective conservation and management to identify and maintain synergies between biodiversity and socio-economic development to fulfil China’s vision for becoming an ecological civilization. The third priority, needs to be achieved through a strategy that is adaptive to current conditions. The conditions under which the economic performance achievements of the last four decades have been made have changed. The contribution from rural, mostly agricultural drivers have decreased, while inequality has massively increased, particularly since 2000. Therefore, policy has shifted focus from a general strategy made for a largely agricultural population to more targeted poverty alleviation for certain groups that remain left behind.

China adopted this targeted approach to poverty reduction starting in 2014. It emphasizes policy and decision makers, as well as administrative officials, to not only identify the sector of the population that is impoverished, but also detect the specific drivers of poverty. With a multi-year time table and region-specific policies, this strategy has been implemented through actions such as targeted business development, relocation of populations in poverty or vulnerable to poverty, providing economic compensation to farmers facing ecological fragility such as drought and flooding, and encouraging education and improving social conditions. It is, however, important that this framework also consider biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation, as these are the cornerstones for maintaining ecosystem productivity, supporting food security, and providing important timber and non-timber resources for sustenance, all of which is intricately connected to more sustainable prosperity and wellbeing.

Targeted measures that identify synergies between biodiversity and economic prosperity for specific sectors of the population that are particularly vulnerable to poverty due to the pressures on biodiversity is a win-win strategy. The economically impoverished are more vulnerable to the impacts from biodiversity loss and climate change and yet they are also the demographic sector that lives most closely connected to forests, protected areas and rural landscapes. Sectors in our society that do not have decision making power, such as our children, are severely impacted from our inability to maintain biodiversity or mitigate climate change. The new report published by the United Nations Children’s Fund shows that one billion children worldwide are at “extremely high risk” of being oppressed by climate change.

As the world’s second largest economy, with GDP growth averaging around 6% each year, and being a mega-biodiverse country, China is considered one of the planet’s most “biologically wealthy” countries. Therefore, it is at a very advantageous position in the global arena to solve the dual challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change and create a new future for millions of people. This potential can only be achieved if business leaders play the critical role in their hands and take decisive action on nature. They have to set climate targets, prioritize reversing nature loss, protecting biodiversity and preserving species. This can help shift the Chinese economy, and the businesses that sustain it, to be nature-positive and carbon net-zero. This is crucial if China is going to achieve its objective of achieving peak COemissions before 2030 and becoming carbon-neutral before 2060.

In July 2021, the World Economic Forum identified that 37 companies in the Greater China region have set climate targets, but there were none yet that have signed up to develop and implement sciencebased targets for nature. At the Forum, Lili Sun, the President of the Society of Entrepreneurs & Ecology, and Wei Dong Zhou, the Business for Nature Chief Advisor in China, brought to attention the greater need for businesses engagement. They state that “While there are encouraging signs of progress, there has not been the same level of momentum and ambition from Chinese businesses on nature and biodiversity loss as there has been on climate”. As someone who has lived and enjoyed the beauty of this land’s biological diversity during the last nine years, I could not agree with them more.

Uromi Manage Goodale(American)，associate prefessor, College of Forestry, Guangxi University

At the global level, the recent United Nations report calls for new financial instruments to significantly increase resources required to make up a shortfall in funding to protect the planet’s fast-shrinking biodiversity. It calls for a global annual spending to protect and restore nature on land to triple this decade to about $350 billion by 2030 and rise to $536 billion by 2050. China and African nations are insistent on establishing a multi-billion-dollar “global biodiversity fund” to help developing countries meet goals agreed to in a new pact being negotiated to protect nature. At a two-part United Nations summit, in May next year, in Kunming, close to 195 nations are expected to finalize a new accord to safeguard the planet’s plants, animals and ecosystems. As a scientist and an educator who has focused on teaching Biodiversity Conservation to both science students and non-science majors over the last nine years, I wish these negotiations to be successful and help bring about a better future for our children and the planet.