International Year of Biodiversity

- WHY UNDP IS INVOLVED IN BIODIVERSITY -

Key Points:

Biodiversity is a Development Issue: Of critical importance to UNDP during IYB is to emphasize the links between biodiversity loss, development and poverty. Biodiversity is currently suffering from severe rates of loss, manifest in species extinctions and the loss of vital ecosystem services. Changes in the availability and quality of biodiversity and ecosystem services minimize resources for the poor and vulnerable, and threaten ecological infrastructure that can protect the most vulnerable from natural disasters. Therefore, biodiversity loss undermines development achievements.

Biodiversity and the MDGs: Reversing the loss of biodiversity has been an explicit part of the MDG agenda since 2006. The loss of provisioning resources, such as food, has exacerbated poverty and hunger around the world. The degradation of regulating services that ecosystems provide has affected the health of millions as air becomes toxic and water too polluted to drink. Supporting services have also been reduced as farmlands become overexploited. Therefore, the loss of biodiversity affects progress on the MDGs.

International Year of Biodiversity:

Linking Biodiversity & Development: During IYB, UNDP should raise awareness amongst policy makers, the general public, and the private sector of the importance of biodiversity to development and the consequences of its loss. UNDP will in particular highlight how the poor and vulnerable are affected by biodiversity loss and what can be done to protect biodiversity, which will also help achieve the MDGs.

2010 Biodiversity Target & Post 2010: One purpose of the IYB is to open policy dialogues and debates with various actors to discuss the extent to which countries have met the 2010 biodiversity target and addressed biodiversity management as part of their development strategies. The 2010 biodiversity target aims to achieve “a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth”. A key focus of policy dialogues will be on developing post 2010 Biodiversity targets, and an accompanying Plan of Action to give direction to future biodiversity management interventions. UNDP will host policy roundtables throughout 2010 where successes and challenges in this regard will be discussed by key policy makers.

High Level Events in 2010: World Biodiversity Day, on May 22, 2010 will have the theme “Biodiversity and Development"—allowing a special focus to be placed on these issues. High level events will include the opening of the General Assembly by Heads of State in September 2010, which will have a component on biodiversity and development. Additionally, the CBD COP10 in Japan in October 2010 will also include a high level event where biodiversity targets for the period post 2010 will be agreed. It will also be decided in the course of the year whether an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (similar to IPCC) will be established to provide a better scientific underpinning for actions to curb biodiversity loss, and to increase investment in addressing this problem. UNDP will publish and disseminate knowledge products that showcase how biodiversity management can be better mainstreamed into national development policies.

UNDP’s Work on Biodiversity:

The objective of UNDP’s biodiversity work is maintaining and enhancing the beneficial services provided by natural ecosystems in order to secure livelihoods, food, water and health security, and reduce vulnerability to climate change. UNDP is addressing biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation through two signature programmes: (i) mainstreaming biodiversity management objectives into economic sector activities, to ensure that production processes maintain essential ecosystem functions that sustain human welfare; and (ii) Unleashing the economic potential of Protected Areas so that they are able to fulfill their management functions, are sustainably financed and contribute towards sustainable development.

UNDP’s Work on Biodiversity Management

i. Biodiversity Loss
Biodiversity underpins development through the provision of products such as food, fibre and medicines and ecosystem services such as the regulation of water supply and air quality. Though billions of people around the world depend on such products and services, this contribution is neither fully recognized nor valued in markets. As a consequence, biodiversity is being lost at an unparalleled pace as natural resources are used without considering their other values, with the result that the capacity of ecosystems to sustain the delivery of goods and services is being undermined. Human activity has disrupted the carbon and nitrogen cycles, the food chain, and the water cycle. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) concluded that almost 60% (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth and make a direct contribution to human wellbeing - such as provision of freshwater, pollination and the regulation of regional climate - are being destabilized.

ii. Biodiversity Loss and Poverty Alleviation

Poor rural communities depend on ecosystem goods and services for health and nutrition as a safety net when faced with climate variability and natural disasters, and for crop and stock development amongst other things. A study from India, reported in the TEEB Report (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) published by the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment in 2008, showed that ecosystem services contribute up to 57% of the GDP of the poor. It also showed that unlike the rich the poor are unable to replace ecosystem services with built infrastructure (for example, by building flood control infrastructure once natural flood defenses provided by forests and wetlands have been lost). A UNDP-funded Study (2005) showed that local communities living in the wetlands of northern Botswana earn up to US$ 1500 per household in imputed income from the harvest of fish, thatch for construction or for basket weaving, employment in the nature tourism industry, and grazing of cattle in the nutrient-rich flood plains. While the incidence of poverty is high in northern Botswana, measured on the basis of cash incomes, there is little absolute poverty in the wetlands as communities enjoy a subsistence ‘affluence’ through the harvest of natural resources.

iii. Biodiversity Loss and Climate Change

Anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating and being accelerated by biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. Healthy ecosystems – for example, forests and bogs – contain massive carbon reservoirs and are vital to regulating the global climate. While climate change poses an immense challenge today, the continued degradation of these ecosystems threatens to exponentially increase greenhouse gas emissions and intensify the negative effects of climate change in the future. The sustained supply of certain ecosystem services, for example stream flow regulation in drought prone areas, will be critical in buffering human populations from the adverse impacts of climate change, including coastal flooding, droughts and other hazards. Healthy and diverse natural ecosystems are expected to be more resilient in the face of climate change – more able to sustain the supply of ecosystem services under climate change – than degraded ones.

2. What UNDP Does to Combat Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Degradation

The sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystem services are keys to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to combating poverty. UNDP addresses biodiversity loss because biodiversity loss threatens to increase poverty and undermine development, but also because the causes of biodiversity loss stem from under-development. In particular, the two main causes of biodiversity loss are weak governance systems (policies, institutions and accountability) and market failures, whereby the market fails to signal a price for many of the diverse services provided by ecosystems. Support to government authorities to address the governance and market failures that drive biodiversity loss requires the broad experience, ability to leverage, and trusted credibility of a neutral UN agency. The objective of UNDP’s biodiversity work is maintaining and enhancing the beneficial services provided by natural ecosystems in order to secure livelihoods, food, water and health security, reduce vulnerability to climate change, and store carbon and avoid emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

UNDP is addressing biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation through two signature programmes:
(i) Mainstreaming biodiversity management objectives into economic sector activities, to ensure that production processes maintain essential ecosystem functions that sustain human welfare; and
(ii) Unleashing the economic potential of Protected Areas (22 % of the Earth’s surface area, including indigenous and community conservation areas), so that they are able to fulfill their management functions, are sustainably financed and contribute towards sustainable development.

UNDP’s portfolio of biodiversity projects, mainly funded by the GEF, consists of 177 projects under implementation, with a value of US$ 533 million directly administered by UNDP, or counting parallel funds, a value amounting to US$ 1.879 billion. In addition, UNDP has a GEF pipeline of 120 projects, with a value of US$ 350 million in funds administered by UNDP and co finance of US$ 1 billion. The UNDP-GEF Small grants programme has provided grants of U$ 130 million to 6300 projects that are enabling local communities to better manage the ecosystems and natural resources on which they depend.

A number of other UNDP environment programmes also contribute towards biodiversity management, including the Poverty Environment Initiative, the UN REDD Programme, UNDP’s International Waters programme, and initiatives of the Nairobi based Dry Lands Development Centre.

UNDP’s biodiversity management work is aligned with the four key results of the strategic priority on Environment and Sustainable Development, agreed in UNDP’s Strategic Plan for 2008-2011. A summary of UNDP’s work and examples of UNDP’s activities are provided below.

Environmental Mainstreaming:

UNDP is assisting programme countries to: (i) develop accountable decision-making frameworks and capacitated institutions to govern ecosystem and natural resource use; (ii) develop sound development policies that address biodiversity loss; and (iii) build leadership and skills within institutions responsible for biodiversity management including in economic sector institutions that influence how biodiversity is used.