Sunday, 6 June 2021

Notional or Actual?

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is calling for 1 bn hectares of land to be rewilded by 2030. This, the UN says, is needed to improve biodiversity and help limit climate change (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/03/rewild-on-massive-scale-to-heal-nature-and-climate-says-un-decade-on-ecosystem-restoration-aoe). The UN initiative would also like to see a similar 'pledge' for the oceans. That word 'pledge' worries me. Countries seem to be excellent at pledging. The same countries are just not so good at protecting the areas they have nominated. The UN are effectively asking for an area of farmland, forests and other ecosystems, the size of China to be rewilded. Who is going to this this? It's clearly not going to be a single location. If the plots are too small, they won't support some species. Isn't there a danger that habitat destruction elsewhere will more then counter-balance any gains?

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