What is the value of the Kunming Declaration?

I believe some of its highlights include the following lines:

- Urgency of the crisis. The declaration states: “… putting biodiversity on a path to recovery is a defining challenge of this decade.”

- About the post-2020 GBF:

• Ambitious and transformative action. “… strong political momentum (is required) to develop, adopt and implement an ambitious and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity framework…”

• Increase coverage of protected areas. “Improve the effectiveness, and increase the coverage, globally, of area-based conservation and management through enhancing and establishing effective systems of protected areas and adopting other effective area-based conservation measures, as well as spatial planning tools…”.

• Effective implementing framework. Parties commit to adopting a post-2020 GBF “…that includes the necessary means of implementation, …, and appropriate mechanisms for monitoring, reporting and review, to reverse the current loss of biodiversity and ensure that biodiversity is put on a path to recovery by 2030 at the latest”. Many parties and NGOs had called for a strengthened implementing framework, which is extremely important, but this principle hadn’t been agreed by parties before.

• Rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Protected areas and conservation measures should “… recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and ensure their full and effective participation.”

• 30% of land and sea. The declaration ‘takes note of the call of many countries to protect and conserve 30% of land and sea’. This refers to the proposed headline target of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 – which I hope will be agreed in the post-2020 GBF.

- Use of the law. Parties agree to “Actively enhance the global environmental legal framework and strengthen environmental law at national level, and its enforcement, to protect biodiversity…”

The above are all powerful principles, and set the stage well for the development of the post-2020 GBF. Perhaps most importantly, the declaration provides strong political commitment among all parties to continue to step up action now, without waiting for the adoption of the post-2020 GBF.