The EU Commission’s conclusion that member states had not done enough to halt species extinction and restore devastated ecosystems provided the impetus for this crucial legislation, urging “more decisive action.”

Aligned with the ambitious targets outlined in the European Green Deal, the bill requires EU member states to implement restoration measures to bring at least 30% of habitats in terrestrial, coastal, freshwater, and marine ecosystems into good condition by 2030. This commitment aims to reverse the alarming decline of Europe’s ecosystems and sets the stage for achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

The nature restoration law, proposed in June 2022, serves as a foundational pillar of the comprehensive EU Green Deal, a far-reaching package of policy initiatives designed to set the EU on a sustainable trajectory. Among its specific provisions, the legislation seeks to restore nature through measures such as the revitalization of drained peatlands, the expansion of green spaces in urban areas, and the enhancement of biodiversity in agricultural and forestry lands.

The proposal is the first major EU biodiversity law since the Habitats Directive in 1992 and follows the commitments made by the European Commission in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 which calls for the recovery of high-quality and resilient ecosystems in the EU. 

The passage of this bill received significant support from activists and environmental advocates, with notable figures such as climate activist Greta Thunberg gathering at the European Parliament to rally behind the cause. Thunberg emphasized the importance of enacting the strongest possible legislation, stressing that anything less would be a “betrayal to future generations.” The widespread presence of protesters underscored the urgency and gravity of the situation, as citizens demand action to protect and restore the natural world.

Supporters of the law recognize its crucial role in accelerating efforts to safeguard and rejuvenate ecosystems. By enabling the survival and thriving of plants, animals, birds, and insects, the legislation will foster biodiversity, store carbon in the land, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, it aims to ensure that humans can continue to benefit from the land through sustainable practices in areas such as food production and water quality.

While opponents of the bill expressed concerns about the capacity of member states to implement the proposed measures and the potential repurposing of agricultural land, the legislation’s supporters argue that these challenges can be overcome. They emphasize the importance of urgent and comprehensive action to protect the environment, and assert that the benefits of restoring nature will ultimately outweigh any short-term adjustments that need to be made.

The passage of this groundbreaking legislation by the EU serves as a clear signal to the international community of the union’s commitment to combatting climate change and protecting biodiversity. It sets an inspiring example for nations worldwide, demonstrating that effective environmental stewardship and sustainable land use are not only necessary but also achievable goals.

With the new law in place, the EU stands poised to lead the way in building a greener and more resilient future for generations to come.

More information: Nature Restoration Law

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The world’s dire ecological situation, and the challenges faced by present and future generations, are increasingly clear. Youth are protesting in the streets and in the courts, as calls for deep transformation and renewal are heard from all segments of society. On October 8, 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recognized the “right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.

For this right to be implemented, structural changes to the legal, economic, social, political, and technological spheres will be required to restore a stable and well-functioning Earth System. A shared consciousness of our global interdependence must give rise to a new common logic, to define and recognize the global commons that support life on Earth — the planetary system that connects us all and on which we all depend. This is a foundational step toward the establishment of a governance system to effectively manage human interactions with the Earth System¹.

Fifty years after the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the signatories of this civil society Declaration call upon the United Nations, its agencies, and all Member States to act upon a four-step pathway towards the critical paradigm shift we all need – the Stockholm+50 Declaration:

1 – IMPLEMENT THE RIGHT TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT. 

Member States should implement UNHRC Resolution 48/13 recognizing this right. This requires acknowledging and acting upon intra- and intergenerational equity which, in turn, requires that principles are progressive and include obligations of non-regression – e.g., enshrining a “regeneration” agenda – in all spheres of environmental law. Non-regression must prevent erosion of protection, while principles of regeneration and progression will ensure that environmental laws and regulations consistently advance in both ambition and effectiveness. It entails ensuring procedural environmental rights, including access to information, public participation, and access to justice. The right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (itself a core global public good) can only be achieved if our shared life support system – the Earth System – is protected as a single, indivisible whole.

2 – RECOGNIZE, RESTORE AND SAFEGUARD THE GLOBAL COMMONS.

The foundational step for successfully managing a common good is to recognize and define it. This will facilitate the establishment of a genuinely effective global environmental governance framework, consistent with the indivisibility of the natural system that supports life on this planet. A well-functioning Earth System, keeping humanity in a “safe operating space” within all vital and interdependent Planetary Boundaries, must be recognized as a fundamental global common in need of urgent stewardship. It thus should be legally recognized as the “Common Heritage” of humankind. A stable climate is a manifestation of the Earth System functioning and represents more than an issue of “Common Concern,” as expressed in the Paris Agreement. Due to the urgency of the climate crisis, the recognition of a stable climate as Common Heritage, to allow for its restoration and safeguard, must become an immediate flagship issue and central priority in the “Our Common Agenda” process.

3 – ESTABLISH A REGENERATIVE ECONOMY. 

Our current economic system treats the consumption of physical natural resources as “wealth creation,” despite the resulting destruction of natural infrastructure. A prosperous future requires an economy in which the natural processes that support all life on Earth and maintain a stable climate become economically visible. Recognizing the Earth System and a stable climate as a “Common Heritage” will enable the proper valuation of these benefits for human societies, which today are considered mere “externalities”. This will provide the legal basis and catalyst to build a regenerative economy and a system of governance that restores and maintains a stable climate and other vital Planetary Boundaries.

4 – PRIORITIZE GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL SOLUTIONS. 

The long-term governance of the global commons, the delivery of global public goods, and management of global public risks all require a permanent system of effective governance to reliably manage our interactions with the Earth System as a whole. For example, a proposal to repurpose the inactive United Nations Trusteeship Council has been widely discussed, including most recently in the UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda (OCA) report. The OCA report calls for a Declaration for Future Generations and highlights the desirability of transforming the Council into a multilateral space for the governance of the commons and to give voice to the interests of succeeding generations. Ensuring adequate global ecological governance and strengthening today’s fragmented institutional frameworks, and making them inclusive, representative, and accountable to global citizens, must be made a central priority for the international community.

Source: Stockholmdeclaration
Photo: Unsplash/Alessandro Erbetta

You can help!

We urge you to support this effort by signing the Declaration for Stockholm+50, setting forth a four-step pathway towards the critical paradigm shift we need to ensure effective planetary governance.

SIGN THE DECLARATION

The post Restoring our common home: Declaration for Stockholm+50 appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

The paper introduces three ‘levers’ for reducing pressures on land and creating a more sustainable food system. The first is to change dietary patterns to reduce food demand and encourage more plant-based diets. The second is to protect and set aside land for nature, whether through re-establishing native ecosystems on spared farmland or integrating pockets of natural habitat into farmland. The third is to shift to more sustainable farming. All three levers will be needed for food system redesign to succeed.

Our recommendations for action are based around a series of major summits and conferences on food systems, climate, biological diversity, nutrition and related areas scheduled in 2021. These offer a unique opportunity for a ‘food systems approach’ to become embedded in international policy processes.

Summary

• Biodiversity loss is accelerating around the world. The global rate of species extinction today is orders of magnitude higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years.
• The global food system is the primary driver of this trend. Over the past 50 years, the conversion of natural ecosystems for crop production or pasture has been the principal cause of habitat loss, in turn reducing biodiversity.
• Our food system has been shaped over past decades by the ‘cheaper food’ paradigm. Policies and economic structures have aimed to produce ever more food at ever lower cost. Intensified agricultural production degrades soils and ecosystems, driving down the productive capacity of land and necessitating even more intensive food production to keep pace with demand. Growing global consumption of cheaper calories and resource-intensive foods aggravates these pressures.
• Current food production depends heavily on the use of inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, energy, land and water, and on unsustainable practices such as monocropping and heavy tilling. This has reduced the variety of landscapes and habitats, threatening or destroying the breeding, feeding and/or nesting of birds, mammals, insects and microbial organisms, and crowding out many native plant species.
• As a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, our food system is also driving climate change, which further degrades habitats and causes species to disperse to new locations. In turn, this brings new species into contact and competition with each other, and creates new opportunities for the emergence of infectious disease.
• Without reform of our food system, biodiversity loss will continue to accelerate. Further destruction of ecosystems and habitats will threaten our ability to sustain human populations. Reform will rely on the use of three principal levers:
  • Firstly, global dietary patterns need to converge around diets based more on plants, owing to the disproportionate impact of animal farming on biodiversity, land use and the environment. Such a shift would also benefit the dietary health of populations around the world, and help reduce the risk of pandemics. Global food waste must be reduced significantly. Together, these measures would reduce pressure on resources including land, through reducing demand.
  • Secondly, more land needs to be protected and set aside for nature. The protection of land from conversion or exploitation is the most effective way of preserving biodiversity, so we need to avoid converting land for agriculture. Restoring native ecosystems on spared agricultural land offers the opportunity to increase biodiversity.
  • Thirdly, we need to farm in a more nature-friendly, biodiversity-supporting way, limiting the use of inputs and replacing monoculture with polyculture farming practices.
• These three levers are in part interdependent. Most notably, the protection and setting aside of land for nature and the shift to nature-friendly farming both depend on dietary change, and will become increasingly difficult to achieve if continued growth in food demand exerts ever-growing pressure on land resources.
• The year ahead offers a potentially unique window of opportunity for food system redesign. A series of international summits and conferences will take place in 2021, during which the topic of food systems and biodiversity will be a common thread. Importantly, the UN secretary-general will convene the world’s first UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in recognition of the need for a transformation of the food system to improve nutrition security, public health and environmental sustainability.
• In 2021, governments around the world are expected to unlock unprecedented levels of investment to support economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to set in motion a ‘green recovery’ will bring questions of sustainability, equity and societal resilience to the fore, creating new opportunities for joined-up policymaking that affords equal priority to public and planetary health.
• In light of these opportunities, this paper recommends action on three fronts if efforts to establish a biodiversity-supporting food system are to be advanced in 2021:
  • International decision-makers need to recognize the interdependence of supply-side and demand-side action. Dietary change and a reduction in food waste are critical to breaking the system lock-ins that have driven the intensification of agriculture and the continued conversion of native ecosystems to crop production and pasture.
  • Stakeholders leading on the design and delivery of the UNFSS must ensure that it embeds a ‘food systems approach’ across other key international processes, including UN climate negotiations. The summit should aim to bring together the interdependent policy threads of environmental sustainability, inclusive prosperity, sustainable growth, and improved public health and well-being.
  • International and national decision-makers need to strengthen the coherence between global agreements and national-level action. National dialogues are needed to translate global commitments into action on the ground. At the same time, national accounting frameworks will be key to building understanding of the value of biodiversity, and to supporting biodiversity protection. Global guidelines in policy areas such as responsible investment, dietary change and nature-based climate change mitigation solutions will be needed to guide national-level action plans that can collectively deliver transformative change to the global food system.

Find the full report here: Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss

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