only 0.23% Mediterrenian Considered within the scope of “effective” protection, According to a complaint by the European association Biodiversa+, which calls for the rapid implementation of higher and more effective levels of marine protection. Experts from this institution reviewed at a press conference the challenges and measures that governments must take to achieve the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework for Biodiversity, approved at the United Nations last December. UN biodiversity summit.
This agreement reached 196 countries at COP15 At the event, which was hosted by the Canadian city of Montreal and described as “historic”, to the governments, Protect “at least” 30% of the planet’s biodiversity by 2030, and 10% strictly protected.
Yet the oceans We are still a long way from the target to be reached in seven years.Biodiversa+ expert Frédéric Lemaître complained that “only 1% of marine areas are strictly protected”. Strict protection of marine areas, for example, exclusion of human activities such as fishing.
In the Mediterranean, scientists found that 1,062 MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) were barely representative. 6% of the Mediterranean basin and “even more worrying”, 95% of the surface covered by these presumed protected areas “lacks adequate standards to reduce human impact. Protecting biodiversity and the health of the oceans.
Only 0.23% of the Mediterranean basin is “effectively protected”In their analysis, the researchers add that these MPAs are “unevenly distributed across political borders and ecoregions.”
“Some of our natural heritage critical danger“As in the case of the beluga sturgeon or the European hamster, which may disappear from the planet in our lifetime,” recalled expert Piero Visconti from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
Among the policies that the European Union can implement to stop the loss of biodiversity, experts, ecological corridors, as well as the restoration of 20% of ecosystems and the conservation of 30% of terrestrial and marine biodiversity and the strict protection of at least one third as recommended by the scientific community.
“The EU has led the way in terms of ambitious protection in recent years and remains a model to follow,” said Visconti. Highlights the rescue of the Iberian lynx as a “clear success story” “thanks to local policies, European funding through Life projects and the efforts of the Doñana Biological Station”.
Visconti, for example member states committed to facilitating the movement of species “It should work for nature and people, through ecological corridors that should be multifunctional, and increase the resilience of ecosystems through climate change mitigation and adaptation”.
In nature conservation, “quality is as important as quantity” and therefore “the focus is not on 30% but on determining which 30% is the best we need to protect, and that’s where it comes in. “I’m playing science.”
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