Tag: Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework

Counting on 2026 … day 17

2nd February 

Food security is a pertinent issue. A recent Government report,  Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security, investigates “how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity.” (1) 

At the top of the list of events the poses a high risk for the UK is global ecosystem breakdown: ie the ecosystems on which we depend for fresh water, clean air and food, and for predictable weather patterns, and which protect us from diseases, would cease to function. 

Without major interventions, the report states that this is a highly likely outcome based on current trends. 

Not only would this impact us locally, the UK would also be impacted by the knock on effects of systems collapse in other countries leading to increased competition for limited resources such as food and water, greater risk of global pandemics,  an increase in both armed conflict and mass migration. Partial system collapse is likely by 2030 and a global collapse as early as 2050. 

In a repeat of what has been said so widely, measures needed to reduce the likelihood of global ecosystem collapse include:-

  • Protecting 30% of global land and ocean by 2030 (now just four years away)
  • 30% of global nature to be under rest by 2030
  • Mobilising finance to close the funding gap of $700bn
  • Reducing risks from pesticide usage by 50% by 2050
  • Eliminating or reforming harmful subsidies by $500bn by 2050
  • Meeting the 1.5C Paris climate agreement target

So why aren’t we – whether as individuals, as industries or as the government – a) doing more to curtail activities that are driving this ecological breakdown, and b) doing more to increase national and global resilience?

  1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security?internal=true

Counting on 2026 … day 15

28th January 

Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a global agreement, dating from 2022seeks to halt and reverse biodiversity loss – ie restoring the integrity of biodiversity. Signatories, which includes the UK, have undertaken to restore 30% of the biodiversity by 2030 – both land based and marine. (1)

In December 2025 the government published its policy paper, The Environmental Improvement Plan (2025) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. (2) This is intended as a ‘roadmap’ first restoring nature, improving environmental quality, creating a circular economy, protecting environmental security and improving access to nature. However it is crunched in terms of minimise and enable and encourage with no measurable targets and no details as to the who and the how and the where.

More useful is the report from the Wild Life Trusts. It starts critically: “Despite often being a key player in the international stage …the UK has not backed this up with implementation at home. The UK’s international environmental leadership threatens to be undermined by the fact that the UK Government is on track to meet only four of its forth individual domestic environmental targets and remains one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet.” But it also offers positive advice: “Space in the UK is finite and there are many competing aspirations for how our land and seas should be used. A national strategic spatial approach to planning the use of both is needed to reduce and avoid conflict. This approach needs to be fully cross departmental to ensure policies for,planning, transport, energy, food and nature are all aligned.” This plan needs to show “how and where 30%of the land will be effectively conserved and restored by 2030…”

The report also reveals some shocking analysis: “…analysis shows that on,y 3.1% of land in ZD gland is effectively protected and managed for nature, whilst a maximum of 8% of English seas could be said to be protected for nature.” It goes on to recommend: “Landscape-scale habitat creation is needed, linked by corridors and stepping stones of wild places throughout our cities and countryside. Practices that damage nature must be minimised to enable nature to recover.” (3)

I’m surprised that in all these discussions about route maps to increase biodiversity and the need to allocate more space for nature, that instigating a switch to largely plant based diets doesn’t feature. We cannot maintain existing diets, existing farming practices and restore nature!

  1. https://www.cbd.int/gbf
  2. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-environmental-improvement-plan-2025-and-the-kunming-montreal-global-biodiversity-framework
  3. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/UK and Global Biodiversity Framework – The Wildlife Trusts 2024.pdf