State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity – Status, Challenges and Potentialities, Report 2020

Our well-being and the livelihoods of human societies are highly dependent on biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides. It is essential that we understand these links and the consequences of biodiversity loss for the various global challenges we currently face, including food insecurity and malnutrition, climate change, poverty and diseases. The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development sets out a transformative approach to achieve socio-economic development while conserving the environment. There is increasing attention on the importance of biodiversity for food security and nutrition, especially above-ground biodiversity such as plants and animals. However, less attention is being paid to the biodiversity beneath our feet, soil biodiversity. Yet, the rich diversity of soil organisms drives many processes that produce food, regenerate soil or purify water. In 2002, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decided at its 6th meeting to establish an International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Soil Biodiversity and since then, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been facilitating this initiative. In 2012, FAO members established the Global Soil Partnership to promote sustainable soil management and increase attention to this hidden resource. The Status of the World’s Soil Resources (FAO, 2015) concluded that the loss of soil biodiversity is considered one of the main global threats to soils in many regions of the world. The 14th Conference of the Parties invited FAO, in collaboration with other organizations, to consider the preparation of a report on the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity covering its current status, challenges and potentialities. This report is the result of an inclusive process involving 300 scientists from around the world under the auspices of the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and the European Commission. The report presents the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity, the threats to it, the solutions that soil biodiversity can provide to problems in different fields, including agriculture, environmental conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, nutrition, medicine and pharmaceuticals, remediation of polluted sites, and many others. The report will make a valuable contribution to raising awareness of the importance of soil biodiversity and highlighting its role in finding solutions to today’s global threats; it is a cross-cutting topic at the heart of the alignment of several international policy frameworks, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and multilateral environmental agreements. Furthermore, soil biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides will be critical to the success of the recently declared UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and the upcoming Post- 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Soil biodiversity could constitute, if an enabling environment is built, a real nature-based solution to most of the problems humanity is facing today, from the field to the global scale. Therefore efforts to conserve and protect biodiversity should include the vast array of soil organisms that make up more than 25% of the total biodiversity of our planet

Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 Country Dossier : Dominican Republic

This document summarizes information on the coverage of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures as recorded in global databases. It includes data on the status of elements qualifying under Aichi Biodiversity Target 11. Discrepancies may exist between these statistics and official country reports due to variations in methodologies, datasets, or base maps used for measuring terrestrial and marine areas. Where available, national statistics are included alongside global records. The document also outlines commitments made under Target 11 and highlights potential opportunities for future planning. It was developed in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, which manages the relevant global databases

Integration of wild and captive genetic management approaches to support conservation of the endangered Japanese golden eagle

The loss of biological diversity within species has the potential to significantly reduce resilience in the face of environmental change. Conservation of genetic variation needs to consider all available sources of diversity within a species, and approaches are required to integrate population management across traditionally separate wild and captive population domains. Here we report on a study that utilises different types of genetic analysis at different taxonomic scales and across an in situ – ex situ transition to support conservation planning for the Japanese golden eagle, a subspecies in serious regional decline. Mitochondrial DNA sequencing and nuclear DNA profiling are used to investigate subspecies differentiation and diversity in the natural population, revealing relatively high levels of variation in Japan. These results are compared with data from a newly established conservation breeding programme that indicates good representation of wild genetic variation in the captive founders. However, subsequent population viability analysis (PVA) to examine the demographic and genetic future of the captive population demonstrates the severe effects of existing reproductive skews, suggesting that this population is not sustainable without intensive genetic management. Lastly, the use of available molecular tools to validate and reconstruct pedigrees in Japanese golden eagle are evaluated and discussed in the context of captive and wild conservation management. The paper highlights the importance of producing and utilising comparative molecular genetic data across the population management spectrum and the benefits of PVA to support the implementation of integrated conservation plans

Ecosystems-based adaptation: Are we being conned? Evidence from Mexico

This paper scrutinises claims made about the promise and efficacy of ecosystems-based adaptation (EBA), through an exploration of EBA-relevant interventions in two fieldsites in Mexico. Our data starts to fill important gaps in current global debates about EBA. We find evidence of the important contribution of interventions relevant to EBA objectives at a small scale and under very specific conditions. However, the viability of similar interventions is substantially reduced, and arguably rendered null, as an incentive for conservation in a more populous fieldsites. Furthermore, evidence suggests that other adaptation options risked being overlooked if the context were viewed solely through the lens of EBA. We conclude that EBA needs to: a) engage with and address the trade-offs which characterised earlier attempts to integrate conservation and development, and; b) acknowledge the implications for its objectives of a globally predominant, neoliberal political economy

An assessment of the risk of Bt-cowpea to non-target organisms in West Africa

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata Walp.) is the most economically important legume crop in arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Cowpea is grown primarily by subsistence farmers who consume the leaves, pods and grain on farm or sell grain in local markets. Processed cowpea foods such as akara (a deep-fat fried fritter) are popular in the rapidly expanding urban areas. Demand far exceeds production due, in part, to a variety of insect pests including, in particular, the lepidopteran legume pod borer (LPB) Maruca vitrata. Genetically engineered Bt-cowpea, based on cry1Ab (Event 709) and cry2Ab transgenes, is being developed for use in sub-Saharan Africa to address losses from the LBP. Before environmental release of transgenic cowpeas, the Bt Cry proteins they express need to be assessed for potential effects on non-target organisms, particularly arthropods. Presented here is an assessment of the potential effects of those Cry proteins expressed in cowpea for control of LPB. Based on the history of safe use of Bt proteins, as well as the fauna associated with cultivated and wild cowpea in sub-Saharan Africa results indicate negligible effects on non-target organisms

Scenarios of large mammal loss in Europe for the 21st century

Distributions and populations of large mammals are declining globally, leading to an increase intheir extinction risk. We forecasted the distribution of extant European large mammals (17 carnivores and10 ungulates) based on 2 Rio+20 scenarios of socioeconomic development: business as usual and reducedimpact through changes in human consumption of natural resources. These scenarios are linked to scenariosof land-use change and climate change through the spatial allocation of land conversion up to 2050. We useda hierarchical framework to forecast the extent and distribution of mammal habitat based on species’ habitatpreferences (as described in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List database) withina suitable climatic space fitted to the species’ current geographic range. We analyzed the geographic andtaxonomic variation of habitat loss for large mammals and the potential effect of the reduced impact policyon loss mitigation. Averaging across scenarios, European large mammals were predicted to lose 10% of theirhabitat by 2050 (25% in the worst-case scenario). Predicted loss was much higher for species in northwesternEurope, where habitat is expected to be lost due to climate and land-use change. Change in human consumptionpatterns was predicted to substantially improve the conservation of habitat for European large mammals,but not enough to reduce extinction risk if species cannot adapt locally to climate change or disperse