Is there a chance to protect global biodiversity and bring about its restoration?

Last summer, many forests burned in the Amazon and Pantanal, California, Siberia and more. Deluge-scale floods in Africa, melting ice caps. These and more illustrate the terrible damage that man has caused to the environment and nature, is there a possibility and chance to stop the disaster that is happening? Will the humanity that destroys every good part manage to repair the damage? Do state leaders and business tycoons have the power to change the destructive direction and restore the environment to its vitality?

On 28/09/20 A "Zoom" conference of countries was held in Barcelona that called for the protection of global biodiversity and its restoration. From the conference, which was financed by the "Thomson Reuters Foundation", came a call to protect the plants, animals and the environmental system, and to repair the damage caused to them by man. According to the foundation, the cost of the project will be approximately seven hundred billion dollars ($700,000,000,000) every year for the next decade. This amount will require a huge investment by countries and businesses. But it will also prevent much bigger losses.

To stop the disaster of biodiversity loss, Canada and Great Britain have joined the countries that have already promised that by 2030 30% of their land will be protected.

The two countries also joined the European Union and 70 other countries called Return the state of biodiversity to its best by 2030. By dealing with pollution, emissions, deforestation, hunting and wild fishing. All this at the same time and in combination with dealing with the corona epidemic.

The secretary of"Biological Diversity Convention" (Convention on Biological Diversity)

announced a chance of success following China's announcement of its joining the effort and the mobilization of additional sources of funding for the implementation of the initiative, which will allow about 500 billion dollars to be diverted to prevent activities harmful to nature.

Germany announced an annual addition of 600 million dollars to be invested in the protection of biological diversity, to be given to poor countries (without a penny or the names of the countries). Also, Germany will cooperate with business owners and international funds with the help of a budget of about 150 million dollars and called on other countries to join.

Britain has announced that it will increase the budget for the protection of forests and other natural areas as part of a budget of about 15 billion dollars intended for solving climate problems. Also, the attitude to the issue will be at the top of the agenda at the UN's "climate summit" that will be held in London in 2021.

The British Environment Minister said: "There is no way to zero emissions without promoting the effort to protect nature and restore it on an unprecedented scale. Restoration solutions that will be based on nature, may provide about a third of the budget until 2030, while the cost of their implementation will be only 3% of the budget."

American philanthropic funds have announced that they will invest more to protect nature (without detailing amounts), large companies such as: Unilever, BNP, Paribas and even the investment and management company Mirova, have pledged to invest and direct funds to land restoration projects, coral reefs, wildlife conservation and nature conservation .

The luxury corporation Cartier has joined to the "Lion Rescue Fund" which intends to raise one hundred million dollars every year until 2025 to stop the loss of biological diversity and protected areas. The foundation does this by asking corporations to donate 0.5% of every advertisement that has pictures of animals.

In addition to lions - with the help of budgets from the fund and the UN, the conservation authorities in Mozambique managed to almost completely stop elephant poaching.

In addition, the fund financed the purchase of areas in Indonesia where elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses and orangutans will be kept, while the personnel in the reserve will consist entirely of women. In addition, support grants were given to countries where local populations are engaged in tourism, mainly wildlife, but are suffering from a decrease in tourism due to the epidemic, but despite the initiatives, the amounts paid and promised are a drop in the ocean of the billions needed each year for real progress and the fulfillment of conservation and restoration goals until 2030.

According to a recently published report (September 2020) The global budget for biodiversity protection in 2019 was about 130 billion. It is estimated that to stop the loss, about 800 billion is needed.

According to the representative of the European Union in the organization called "The Journey for Nature", the conference was the first in a series as part of an attempt to spur momentum to raise more funding sources before the UN Summit in May (2021).

According to him: "The only way for the initiative will be if the global south (a nickname for the poor regions) receives clear signs that the developed world will realize the funding." However, according to an economic analysis, raising budgets for nature and the climate will be a challenge when large parts of the world are in recession due to the epidemic.

A senior manager at the organization "The Nature Conservancy", said: "With the right policies, regulations and incentives, governments can pave the way." For too long we underestimated and invested too little in nature."

It is worth adding and noting that at the UN conference on climate, it is evident Positive trend change of a politicianM. At the conference, the Western countries pledged to invest billions in order to mitigate the warming and prepare to prevent climate disasters.

But there are those who do not see only the positive trend. Tara Villalba, a Filipina who has been active on the issue for many years, reacted to the change by saying that: "Most of the activists of the environmental movements are whites with means from the rich Western countries, therefore the decisions and initiatives do not take into account the position of the poor countries that are affected to the point of being ignored which borders on racism."

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Biodiversity is in danger. What can be done to stop the extinction happening?
• The decrease in the level of biological diversity below the safe level - damage to ecosystems and humans
• Biological diversity - status report
• Habitats must be preserved: the biodiversity chapter from the report of the Knowledge Center for Climate Change Preparation in Israel