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Aiming higher to bend the curve of biodiversity loss

Nature Sustainability volume 1, pages 448–451 (2018)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 10 August 2020

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The development of the post-2020 strategic plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity provides a vital window of opportunity to set out an ambitious plan of action to restore global biodiversity. The components of such a plan, including its goal, targets and some metrics, already exist and provide a roadmap to 2050.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) outlines an ambitious vision: “...by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.” In November 2018 the 195 countries (plus the EU) that are parties to the CBD will meet to start work on a new strategic plan for the period after 2020. These deliberations come in the wake of the well-publicized failure to meet the 2010 target to significantly reduce biodiversity loss and evidence that the ambition of the plan for 2020 (the Aichi Targets) will also not be achieved1. Far from it: biodiversity continues to decline steeply. Without a substantial change in approach and ambition, these successive failures will almost certainly be repeated.

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Fig. 1: Biodiversity declines have continued despite repeated policy commitments aimed at slowing or halting the rate of loss.
Fig. 2: Required trajectories for three biodiversity indicators.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge advice and input from L. McRae, M. Obersteiner, D. van Vuuren, D. Nel, R. Shaw, N. Sticzy, M. Wright and L. Young. We also received helpful comments from H. Pereira. S.E.C. acknowledges part-funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene, grant no. ERC-2016-ADG 743080).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK

    Georgina M. Mace

  2. WWF UK, Woking, UK

    Mike Barrett

  3. UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK

    Neil D. Burgess

  4. Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, The Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Neil D. Burgess

  5. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sarah E. Cornell

  6. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK

    Robin Freeman

  7. WWF Netherlands, Zeist, Netherlands

    Monique Grooten

  8. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK

    Andy Purvis

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  1. Georgina M. Mace
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  4. Sarah E. Cornell
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Correspondence to Georgina M. Mace.

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Supplementary Fig. 1, Supplementary Tables 1,2

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Mace, G.M., Barrett, M., Burgess, N.D. et al. Aiming higher to bend the curve of biodiversity loss. Nat Sustain 1, 448–451 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0130-0

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