It is not one, but three crises that must be faced simultaneously: the Covid-19 pandemic, the erosion of biodiversity and climate change, which continue to worsen. In the Marseille manifesto, adopted at the end of its congress on Friday 10 September, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) calls for a “Urgent systemic reform” to jointly solve all of these challenges.
“Mankind has reached a tipping point, writes the organization. Our window of fire for responding to these interdependent emergencies and equitably sharing the planet’s resources is shrinking very quickly. Our existing systems are not working. Economic “success” can no longer come at the expense of nature. “
Despite the health context, the congress organized in a hybrid format brought together, in ten days, 5,700 delegates in Marseille and 3,300 remotely and at least 25,000 people, including many young people, who visited the spaces intended for the public. “The international sequence devoted to the protection of the planet, before the world conference on biological diversity (COP15) and that on the climate (COP26), is indeed open”, welcomed the French Secretary of State in charge of biodiversity Bérangère Abba.
To stop the dramatic erosion of biodiversity, IUCN calls on each of its members to commit to achieving the adoption of a global framework “Transformative, efficient and ambitious” during the COP15 which will open virtually in October, then will be held face-to-face in spring 2022 in Kunming, China. It is on this occasion that the Heads of State will define the roadmap for the next ten years to succeed in halting the disappearance of species and the degradation of ecosystems.
Links between the climate crisis and that of biodiversity
IUCN members pledged to support, in view of the COP, the goal of effectively and equitably protecting and conserving at least 30% of the land and seas by 2030, by putting the focus on the most important sites for biodiversity. This ambition is supported by a coalition initiated by France and Costa Rica which brings together more than seventy countries. “The 30% is really the minimum threshold to be reached, said Harvey Locke, a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. Ultimately, science tells us that we will have to protect at least half of the planet. “
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