Biodiversity

UNEP FI members can now access a new database that matches nature- and biodiversity-related projects with public and private funders, facilitating an effective allocation of financial resources for biodiversity conservation and restoration. The loss of biodiversity and destruction of ecosystems is estimated to cost the global economy trillions of dollars. While nature efforts are mounting, $700 billion per year is lacking to close the biodiversity finance gap by 2030 according to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Governments and public funding alone are not enough to close this gap. Private finance, which now constitutes only 17% of investments in nature-based solutions, must increase drastically and assume a significant role in bridging the finance gap, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The Finance Resource Database for Biodiversity (FIRE), co-developed by the UNDP BIOFIN, UNEP FI, Cornell University, the Campai...

China is well known for its medicinal use of wild plants, a tradition that dates back thousands of years. These traditional Chinese medicines include many wild orchids, some quite showy. Typically, orchids are consumed alone or mixed with other herbs in tea or soup. The health benefits vary depending on species; conditions for which orchids are used include immune system boosting, hypertension and stroke. Many of these medicinal orchids are among the 40-plus species in the genus Dendrobium. In recent decades, supplies of wild-sourced medicinal Dendrobium orchids have declined steadily, with shortages of some types. This is occurring in the limestone regions of Guizhou and Guangxi, the main area where Dendrobium has grown naturally, due to a combination of overharvesting by collectors and habitat loss. I am an ecologist and lead several research projects in southwestern China, where the nation’s first orchid nature preserve is located in a zone with a highly diverse asso...

When the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged, many wildlife disease researchers like me were not too surprised. Some were intrigued it hadn’t happened sooner; after all, it is our job to observe, describe and study pandemic dynamics in animals. Amphibians, for example, have been undergoing a global panzootic – the animal version of a pandemic – for decades. In the late 1990s, researchers identified the amphibian chytrid fungus, which causes the often-lethal disease chytridiomycosis, as the probable culprit behind frog and salamander declines and extinctions from Australia to Central America and elsewhere that began 10, 20 or even 30 years before. Scientists have found this pathogen on every continent that amphibians inhabit, and the extensive global amphibian trade has likely spread highly lethal strains around the world. The amphibian chytrid fungus is widespread in some geographic regions, and, like the virus that causes COVID-19, it can mutate rapidly and take n...

Musical performances usually happen in concert halls or clubs, but famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is exploring a new venue: U.S. national parks. In a project called Our Common Nature, Ma is performing in settings such as the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. By making music and bringing people together in scenic places, Ma aims to help humans understand where they fit in the natural world. “What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” Ma mused in a recent New York Times article. There’s a buzzword for this outlook: nature-positive. And it’s cropping up at high-level meetings, including the 2021 G-7 summit in Cornwall, England and the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that adopted an ambitious framework for protecting nature in December 2022. As a group of environmental leaders wrote in 2021: &...

More than one-third of all people in the world live in cities, towns and villages on coasts. They rely on healthy oceans for many things, including food, income, a stable climate and ready connections to nature. But as coastal populations continue to grow, governments are under increasing pressure to ramp up development for transportation, power generation and economic growth. Projects like these can have heavy impacts on lands, waters and wildlife. World leaders are gathering in Montreal this week for the long-awaited Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15. This treaty, which was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is designed to protect biodiversity – the variety of life on Earth, from genes to entire ecosystems. At the two-week conference, nations are expected to officially adopt the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which will guide global conservation efforts over the next decade. China is thi...