Some countries, in addition to the United States, Brazil and Australia, are regressing in existing legislation and making regulations and ensuring measures to protect nature more flexible, according to leader Pamela McElwee, associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the School of Science at Rutgers-New Brunswick University. Environmental and biological sciences.
<< Last week at the UN, more than 60 heads of state spoke at a virtual summit and pledged to deal with the biodiversity crisis, but when we took a look at what countries are doing, either in their budgets and beyond policies or in their COVID makes recovery plans and plans, very few governments put their cash where they are," McElwee said. "We still see massive amounts of money for destructive practices, such as subsidizing overpesca or generating fossil fuels or construction infrastructure that will damage ecological integrity. Only a small number of countries deal with the biodiversity crisis in the serious way it deserves. "
The article, written through economists, anthropologists and environmental experts from many establishments on 3 continents, is published in One Earth magazine and explores adjustments in global economic systems, adding incentives, regulations, fiscal policy and employment systems, which are necessary to move forward. away from biodiversity-damaging activities and to which the resilience of the ecosystem
Unless action is taken, around 1 million species are threatened with extinction, many of them decades from now, and the overall rate of species extinction will accelerate, according to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Platform for Science and Policy in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The report noted that the extinction rate “is already at least ten to many times higher than the average for the past 10 million years. “All authors of this new article have contributed to the 2019 IPBES report.
The new document sets out the steps governments deserve to take in their recovery and recovery plans that would prioritize nature, provide immediate labor benefits, and lead to longer-term transformations in the global economy. The examples come with the shift from destructive fossil fuel subsidies to favorable subsidies, adding those that inspire environmentally friendly agriculture; carbon taxes that may be forest cover programs only; and paint programs aimed at green recovery and green infrastructure.
While many scientists and politicians have promoted the recovery of low-carbon COVID-19, how biodiversity and ecosystems are included in economic plans has gained much less attention. Discussions on nature-related movements have largely focused on end-wildlife markets as a forward-looking source of new viruses, expansion of herbal spaces or reduction of tropical deforestation. While this would possibly be important, they do not necessarily solve the root causes of ecological disturbances, the authors say.
Several countries, in addition to the United States and China, have necessarily allocated zero stimulus investments to biodiversity or ecosystems. Only the European Union and the Member States make really significant monetary investments in biodiversity for post-COVID planning. Other countries, adding New Zealand, India and Pakistan will offer investments in nature-based work, such as ecological restoration, but at modest levels.