The parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity meet this week in Rome as part of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework at the second meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group. To support the dialogue and negotiations on priorities, goals, and targets for mountains in 2030 and beyond, an initiative led by UN Environment and GRID-Arendal (GRIDA), with contributions from its partners - the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) – led to the development and publication of a Policy Brief titled "Elevating Mountains in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 2.0", which builds on previous efforts to showcase mountains that began as part of the first meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group held in Nairobi in August 2019.
The brief articulates the myriad ways mountains contribute to global biodiversity on Earth, and its contributions to communities and their well-being. Considering that nearly a third of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) is located either partly or completely inside mountain areas, mountains play a vital role in various ecosystem services, such as providing food and medicinal resources, and address disaster risk. Additionally, mountains provide water for over a fifth of the world’s population, indicating a significant global advantage.
With this in mind, the policy brief outlines rationale for the adoption of 2050 goals and 2030 action targets in line with mountain-specific needs and other global policy frameworks, and requests resources for obtaining reliable data to monitor and better understand changes that occur in these areas, to establish appropriate conservation responses, and to inform policy.
In order to protect mountains, the brief recommends that the post-2020 framework better define freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems and that the 2050 goals and 2030 action targets more precisely address the risks and needs of these. Additionally, the brief suggests adopting 2030 action targets that specifically address and mitigate human activities and interventions that contribute to mountain biodiversity loss.
Finally, the brief recommends 2030 action targets that focus on KBAs and address protected area coverage, that adopt ecosystem-based approaches to conservation consistent with greenhouse gas emission reduction, that ensure the cultivation and breeding of comestible species located in mountain regions, and that promote networks and their efforts to implement the targets across scale.
This policy brief was prepared by GRIDA and UN Environment in collaboration with MRI and GMBA, GRASP, the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention, and received financial support from the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg through the UN Environment Vanishing Treasures project. It was officially launched during an informal meeting held at the margins of the Open-Ended Working Group meeting in Rome, to thematically highlight 'mountains', organized and convened by UN Environment, GRIDA, MRI, GMBA, the Mountain Partnership, the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention, the Secretariat of the Alpine Convention, Government of Austria, Government of Hungary, and the Government of Poland.
On behalf of the MRI Coordination Office, we wish to also acknowledge and thank our colleagues Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Andreas Fischlin, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Ignacio Palomo, Aníbal Pauchard, and Heidi Steltzer, who contributed with expert reviews as members of the mountain research community.
Photo by Pixabay user JLB1988
