Nature is in peril and we do not have another decade to save it.
That’s what Irish Minister for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan, told the UN’S global biodiversity summit COP15 on Thursday.
During the speech he announced plans to put the National Biodiversity Action Plan on statutory footing with stronger responsibilities for public bodies.
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Addressing fellow decision makers at the high-level segment of the conference in Montreal, Canada he admitted that like other countries, “we have a long road yet to travel” in Ireland.
Delegates from around the world are debating a new framework to stop biodiversity collapse at the China-Canada co-chaired event this December.
It is hoped they will agree to a range of measures, including the protection of 30% of the world’s lands and seas.
Minister Noonan said he was addressing the conference with “a sense of urgency and deep concern” at what he called “the most important global biodiversity summit for over a decade”.
“Nature is in peril, the complex web of life on which we all depend, the product of 3.6 billion years of evolution, is deteriorating before our very eyes, and we do not have another decade. We simply don’t,” he added.
“Ireland is committed to supporting negotiations for an ambitious global biodiversity framework that will halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
“But we are not waiting for these negotiations to act.”
Minister Noonan outlined a range of commitments Ireland has already made.
They included increasing funding to the NPWS by 85% in three years, rising international spending of €15m and pioneering high nature value farming schemes that reward real results for nature and people.
He highlighted a decision this week to increase Ireland’s marine protected areas from 2.3% to 8.3% and a new Bill to ensure it reaches 30% by 2030 as well as a business and biodiversity platform aimed at engaging the private sector.
He told leaders about how the country has started restoring and rehabilitating almost 100,000 hectares of raised and blanket bog.
He also raised the great work of the world’s first Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss in Ireland, which recently called for a referendum on nature protection, and a world-first Children and Young People’s Assembly.
Minister Noonan also outlined development of the country’s fourth National Biodiversity Action Plan which he says will further ambitions to engage with the EU’s nature restoration law and protected area targets as well as the outcomes of COP15.
And said he hopes to put that plan on statutory footing next year.
A memorandum will be brought to Cabinet shortly seeking to restore the Wildlife (Amendment) Bill 2016 to the Dáil Order Paper to underpin the National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) in legislation.
He said afterwards: "These proposals will significantly enhance Ireland’s ability to implement biodiversity action across the country. This couldn’t come at a more crucial time. As 196 nations come together to agree an ambitious new set of global goals for nature at COP15, we know that what really matters is what happens on the ground. That’s what these new legislative measures are focussing on."
Ireland has the lowest forest cover in Europe while reports show biodiversity loss is accelerating, threatening iconic species of birds, mammals and fish like the curlew and Atlantic Salmon.
Our waterways are polluted, toxins fill the air and the country is failing to meet even its own biodiversity targets.
“Like many countries, we have a long road yet to travel, but through action, passion and determination across Government and society, we will get there,” the Minister added at COP15.
“The Kunming Declaration sets out our planet’s collective ambition for the conservation and restoration of the living world.
The weight of that ambition – 550 gigatons of global biomass; our ancient biological inheritance; the very fabric of our common future – is on our shoulders.
“May we have the strength and the courage to bear that burden, and the wisdom to seize its opportunity.”
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