Aussie and international plans to halt the biodiversity crisis don't meet the promises made

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-02-17 21:00

Australia; QLD

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Almost 200 nations have made bold commitments to halt biodiversity loss as signatories to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), but an assessment by Aussie researchers of the action plans submitted before COP-16 has found that no nation has created a plan that meets all the requirements and overall ambitions. Of the GBF’s 23 targets, the team focused on the two most prominent – targets 2 (the 30% restoration target) and 3 (the 30x30 protection target). They found many countries to be less explicit in target setting and shied away from defining their commitments with numbers – including Italy, who mentioned ‘large surfaces of degraded areas’ and Australia, which committed to restoring ‘priority degraded areas’. Australia was also one of only a few plans that referred to the rights of Indigenous peoples and equitable governance. Researchers also highlighted a need to define what ‘under effective’ restoration means in practical terms, and said Australia comments on the importance of defining this but does not articulate how it might be done domestically. With five years until the GBF deadline, the authors say countries will need to increase both their ambition and action if they are to avert the biodiversity crisis.