National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans: Natural Catalysts for Accelerating Action on Sustainable Development Goals

In 2010, the Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed to an ambitious set of 20 targets, called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, as part of their commitment to the CBD Strategic Plan. One of the Targets (Target 17) called for each country to revise its National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP) in accordance with the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. From 2010 to November 2016, virtually all countries have revised, or are currently completing the revision of, their NBSAP. As of November 2016, 123 countries (76 of them eligible for official development assistance) have submitted post-2010 NBSAPs. At the same time, the world agreed to an ambitious set of 17 Goals and 169 Targets in 2015, called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The absence of a widely accepted taxonomy for describing NBSAP actions makes any systematic and cross-cutting analysis of NBSAPs difficult. Moreover, the collective contribution of specific NBSAP actions to SDGs has not yet been studied. The purpose of this report is to systematically understand the breadth and depth of actions proposed across all NBSAPs, to propose a common framework for analysis, and to understand the relationship between NBSAPs and the SDGsThe data in this report comes from more than 6000 actions included in NBSAPs of 60 countries. These NBSAPs have all been submitted to the Secretariat of the CBD after 2010, and all are from countries eligible to received funding from the Global Environmental Facility. The researchers tagged each of the actions in this analysis not only by the thematic categories and generic actions of this taxonomy, but also by the associated primary and secondary SDGs and their associated targets (as well as by Aichi Biodiversity Targets). In doing so, the collective impact of the contribution of NBSAPs toward fulfilling the SDGs is beginning to emerge. The data from this analysis are far richer and more complex than this interim report can convey. However, it is clear from this preliminary analysis that the impact of NBSAP actions extends far beyond Goal 14 (Life Below Water) and Goal 15 (Life on Land). The NBSAP examples of actions provided under each of the categories illustrate how a single action can contribute to multiple goals. The actions included across all NBSAPs would, if fully implemented, catalyze progress in national food security, water security, livelihoods, economic growth, disaster risk reduction, health, gender and climate resilience, among other goals. Furthermore, because NBSAPs are adopted as policy instruments, they provide a ready pathway for fast implementation of national sustainable development goals.Investing in biodiversity and ecosystems through NBSAP actions also ensures that no one is left behind in the implementation of the SDGs. Nature provides a safety net to billions of people around the world: 1.6 billion people depend on forests for jobs, livelihoods, food and fuel; one out of eight people depend on fisheries for their livelihoods; and more than 4 billion people depend on medicines derived from forests for their health.  Investing in nature helps ensure that the most vulnerable people in society, especially the more than 800 million people living in poverty, have a durable safety net.The recommendations included at the end of this report highlight the potential need for targeted support to countries to implement key thematic areas. The authors hope that this preliminary analysis will enable governments, and the organizations that support them, to focus their efforts on supporting those thematic areas that will have the most impact in accelerating progress in implementing NBSAP actions. They also hope this report will encourage donor organizations to consider supporting the implementation of NBSAP actions that have direct SDG outcomes

No Place to Hide:: Effects of Climate Change on Protected Areas

This paper considers the potential impacts of climate change on protected areas (PAs) and actions that can be taken to mitigate them. Recent research suggests that the types of environmental changes predicted in climatic models are now taking place. Studies of many animals and plants that show significant alterations in range or behaviour find that the most consistent explanation for these is climate change. These impacts may necessitate a fundamental rethinking in the approach to protection. Protected areas are rooted in the concept of permanence: protection works best as a conservation tool if the area remains protected for the foreseeable future. But under climate change, species for which a particular protected area was established may no longer survive there. Some protected areas - for instance in coastal, arctic and mountain regions - may disappear altogether in their current form

Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 31176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research Fellowship

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framewor

58 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables- The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). - Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. - Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. - If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. [...]A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 311176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research FellowshipPeer reviewe

An update on progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Target 11

In 2010, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity with 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets expected to be achieved by 2020. Target 11 sets out goals for protected and conserved areas in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. This paper, prepared on behalf of the Global Partnership on Aichi Target 11, reports on progress to date in meeting the quantitative and qualitative elements of Target 11 and identifies opportunities for further progress prior to the 15th Conference of the Parties in Kunming in 2020 and beyond.JRC.D.6-Knowledge for Sustainable Development and Food Securit

Nucleolar Changes and Fibrillarin Redistribution Following Apatone Treatment of Human Bladder Carcinoma Cells

Ascorbate and menadione (Apatone) in a ratio of 100:1 kills tumor cells by autoschizis. In this study, vitamin-induced changes in nucleolar structure were evaluated as markers of autoschizis. Human bladder carcinoma (T24) cells were overlain with vitamins or with culture medium. Supernatants were removed at 1-hr intervals from 1 to 4 hr, and the cells were washed with PBS and prepared for assay. Apatone produced marked alterations in nucleolar structure including redistribution of nucleolar components, formation of ring-shaped nucleoli, condensation and increase of the proportion of perinucleolar chromatin, and the enlargement of nucleolar fibrillar centers. Immunogold labeling of the nucleolar rRNA revealed a granular localization in treated and sham-treated cells, and immunogold labeling of the rDNA revealed a shift from the fibrillar centers to the condensed perinucleolar chromatin. Fibrillarin staining shifted from the fibrillar centers and adjacent regions to a more homogeneous staining of the entire nucleolus and was consistent with the percentage of autoschizic cells detected by flow cytometry. Because autoschizis entails sequential reactivation of DNase I and DNase II, and because the fibrillarin redistribution following DNase I and Apatone treatment is identical, it appears that the nucleolar and fibrillarin changes are markers of autoschizis. (J Histochem Cytochem 58:635–651, 2010