Executive Secretary | Convention on Biological Diversity
Ms. Elizabeth MarumaMrema, is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Ms. Mrema has worked with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for over two decades and was the Director of the Law Division at UNEP which is also responsible for international environmental governance as well as multilateral environmental agreements. Prior to joining the Law Division in June 2014, she was Deputy Director of the Ecosystems Division, in charge of coordination, operations and programme delivery from 2012 and for one year also served as Acting Director to the same Division. In 2018, she was also the Acting Director of the Corporate Services Division. Prior to these duties, she also served as Executive Secretary of the UNEP/Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) from 2009-2012. Ms. Mrema’s work at UNEP has focused on development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws including multilateral environmental agreements at national, regional and international levels, among others. Her various roles over the years, include being coordinator of capacity-building and compliance and enforcement projects related to environmental law and the multilateral environmental conventions.
- Since ecosystem restoration and realization of cross-goals SDGs 2030 has heightened our commitments to achieve biodiversity related targets, how is CBD responding towards the realization?
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have pushed and advocated for decisions that make use of holistic approaches, foster mainstreaming and the full involvement of indigenous peoples and local communities and stakeholders. In this manner, though the five pathways identified in the recently published fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-5), countries can make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Each of the pathways is necessary but none on its own sufficient:
- Efforts to conserve and restore biodiversity must be scaled up at all levels using approaches that will depend on local context.
- Efforts to keep climate change well below 2 degrees C and close to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels are needed to prevent climate impacts from overwhelming all other actions in support of biodiversity.
- Effective steps need to be taken to address all remaining pressures driving biodiversity loss, including invasive alien species, pollution, and the unsustainable exploitation of biodiversity, especially in marine and inland water ecosystems.
- Transformations need to be achieved in the production of goods and services, especially food.
- Transformations are similarly needed to limit demand for increased food production by adopting healthier diets and reducing food waste, and in limiting the consumption of other material goods and services affecting biodiversity, for example in forestry, energy and provision of fresh water.
The CBD is committed to facilitating the participatory process towards the development of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and the accompanying monitoring and assessment framework. The post-2020 framework will contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Progress towards the SDGs will also help provide conditions necessary to implement the framework.
Ecosystem restoration will most certainly make an important contribution towards achieving the new framework. The CBD isa core member of the global team (UN Environment Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, CBD) developing the platform of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. The platform will help catalyze and raise awareness of significant actions, programmes, initiatives and policies on ecosystem restoration.
The Convention also implements the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative supported by the Korea Forest Service. The initiative has provided catalytic funding for projects in 12 developing countries, engaged with national practitioners through technical support workshops, and developed knowledge products to inform implementation of ecosystem restoration projects and programmes. Since 2016, the Initiative has been guided by the adoption by CBD Parties of the short-term action plan on ecosystem restoration.
- The UN’s Global Biodiversity Outlook report 2020 has stressed on factors like current human-nature relationship, continued biodiversity loss, degradation of ecosystems having consequences for human well-being and survival. Can you substantiate with facts?
Healthy communities rely on well-functioning and bio-diverse ecosystems. These provide clean air, fresh water, medicines, food, and nutrition security and support critical ecosystem functions and services such as pest and disease regulation, pollination, climate regulation, and mitigating the impacts of extreme events. The availability and sustainable management of natural resources in large part determines the baseline health status of a community, securing livelihoods and warranting community resilience.
Biodiversity is an important source of genetic resources for the development of many treatments, vaccines and a range of biotechnology products used in both modern and traditional medicines, as well as agriculture and industry. These include artemisinin as a treatment for malaria, and digitalis for heart disease.
Biodiversity is crucial to poverty eradication; due to the basic goods and ecosystem services it provides. Globally, some 2.6 billion people draw their livelihoods either partially or fully from agriculture. More than 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity, while over 1.6 billion rely on forests and non-timber forest products. Biodiversity loss poses a significant threat to their livelihoods.
And, as the global community battles one of the worst pandemics in recent history, it is important to remember that biodiversity is a key element of the ‘One Health’ approach. The World Health Organization defines this as an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research whereby multiple sectors communicate and work together. The goal is to achieve better public health outcomes, by recognizing that human health is intimately connected to the health of animals and our shared environment, as well as socio-economic and political factors. At the local, national, and global scale, implementation of One Health approaches has led to improved outbreak responses, generated critical data, contributed to the discovery of new pathogens, informed disease control programs to reduce burden of diseases and enhanced preparedness for infectious diseases.
A recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on biodiversity and pandemics, concluded that unsustainable exploitation of the environment by human activities has led to most pandemics. The report notes that reducing anthropogenic global environmental change will help reduce pandemic risk. Pandemics and other emerging zoonoses cause both widespread human suffering and potentially more than a trillion dollars in economic damages annually.
- Post-Covid-19 has called for Green Recovery championing the cause of “biodiversity action” at a rapid pace. Can you share your views?
The relationship between biodiversity and infectious disease is complex. COVID-19 has shown that the loss and degradation of biodiversity undermines the web of life and increases the risk of disease spillover from wildlife to people.
By conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, while sharing the benefits with equity, we can prevent the emergence of future diseases. Our efforts to build back better, can be integrated with the One Health approach, and address the challenges of biodiversity, climate change and land degradation.
Broadly, there are five things we can do as part of a green recovery.
Firstly, we need to reduce disease risk by conserving and restoring ecosystems. We must prevent further degradation that can create conditions for the emergence of zoonotic diseases. And then begin to restore global ecosystems and reverse damage already done. This is key to advancing the climate and land agendas, while simultaneously generating employment.
Secondly, we must promote the sustainable, legal, and safe use of wildlife. This reduces the chance of pandemics and helps rebuild livelihoods at local levels.
Thirdly, we need to promote sustainable and safe agriculture, including crop and livestock production and aquaculture. This improves animal and human health, providing the basis for climate-friendly agriculture that supports sustainable land use.
Fourthly, we must focus on urban settings; create healthy cities and landscapes that integrate biodiversity, while supporting sustainable consumption to reinforce conservation and sustainable use beyond urban boundaries.
And we need to promote healthy diets as part of sustainable consumption. Reduced meat consumption, including elimination of bushmeat from illegal sources, and increased variety of foodstuffs from sustainable agriculture, would support conservation and sustainable use and lead to better overall health outcomes.
We must also ensure that COVID-19 stimulus and recovery plans embrace these considerations; and that we build cooperation and complementarity among all actors and relevant instruments including other multilateral environmental agreements and international organizations.
- Marine debris is wreaking havoc on the marine and coastal biodiversity and habitats. How is Convention for Biological Diversity, under your stewardship stepping efforts to combat the menace of marine pollution and micro-plastics?
CBD Parties have long acknowledged the need for urgent action on pollution. In 2010, the Conference of the Parties (COP) adopted Aichi Biodiversity Target 8, calling for the reduction, by 2020, of pollution to levels not detrimental to ecosystem function and biodiversity.
CBD Parties have also understood the need for specific focus on addressing marine pollution. The Voluntary Practical Guidance on Preventing and Mitigating the Impacts of Marine Debris on Marine and Coastal Biodiversity and Habitatsoutlines actions needed to prevent the production and introduction of pollution from land- and sea-based sources, ways to minimize its impacts on marine ecosystems, and how to integrate pollution strategies into plans and policies across various sectors.
Parties have also recognized the importance of addressing pollution in strategies and approaches focused on conserving and sustainably using different types of marine systems. For example, Priority Actions to Achieve Aichi Biodiversity Target 10 for Coral Reefs and Closely Associated Ecosystems, adopted by the COP in 2012, and the Voluntary Specific Workplan on Biodiversity in Cold-Water Areas within the Jurisdictional Scope of the Convention, adopted by the COP in 2014 and in 2016, respectively, each include specific types of actions and measures needed to minimize and eliminate introduction of pollution and its impacts on sensitive marine ecosystems.
The production of pollution and its impacts touch on nearly all facets of society. Marine pollution requires concerted attention and engagement from a wide range of stakeholders. Ocean pollution is not even an ocean-specific issue, as a major proportion of the pollution that ends up in the ocean comes from our activities on land, and even from the day-to-day activities of average citizens.
Considering its pervasiveness across society, pollution has become a central component of the focus under the CBD on “biodiversity mainstreaming”, which focuses on how biodiversity considerations need to be centrally incorporated, or “mainstreamed”, into sectoral plans, policies, and programs.
We must also not lose sight of the diversity of pollution that impacts the ocean. Plastics have become a major hot topic, with new research, management actions and private sector leadership abounding worldwide. Plastics, however, are far from the only type of pollution. One type that sometimes slips under the radar is noise pollution. Thankfully, CBD Parties addressed this issue in COP decision XII/22 that outlined the types of measures needed to address the impacts of human-produced noise on marine biodiversity and ecosystems.
Despite growing attention and action on pollution, Aichi Target 8 was not achieved. Actions taken to minimize plastic waste have not been sufficient to reduce plastic pollution. And our window to avoid major tipping points is narrowing. By 2040, the rate at which plastic pollution enters aquatic ecosystems is projected to increase by 2.6 times the level of 2016 under a ‘business as usual’ scenario.
One of the major reasons for the failure to achieve this, and many other Aichi Targets, was the lack of engagement of the range of sectors and stakeholders needed to reverse trends. The post-2020 framework provides a new opportunity to learn from these lessons by taking a whole-of-society approach, we can rid the world of the scourge of ocean pollution.
- The disciplines of biodiversity and gender often overlap. Threats to ecosystems and biodiversity through habitat degradation and biodiversity loss affect men and women differently. What is your opinion regarding this?
The effects of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation are not equally distributed and tend to disadvantage women more than men. Numerous global studies illustrate how the loss of biodiversity and functioning ecosystems can increase the challenges women face in maintaining livelihoods, health, food security and personal safety, among others.
Women typically bear the burden of care work in households, which in rural settings often includes collection of water and fuelwood and managing home gardens for subsistence use. This leaves women with little time for income-generating activities, thereby increasing their dependence on available biodiversity, the loss of which can jeopardize already tenuous livelihoods and associated health and nutrition.
Increases in gender-based violence are also closely associated with environmental degradation and resource scarcity. Violence is often used as a means of maintaining control and existing power imbalances. Such violence is demonstrated in many forms, including through sexual exploitation related to access to and control over resources, domestic partner violence when power dynamics may shift in a household, and as a method of quelling resistance from local communities during disputes and forceful displacements due to large-scale developments. This violence helps reinforce gender inequalities and can affect the ability of women and girls to equally and safely participate and lead in environment-related activism and organizational work and programming.
Women also remain underrepresented in decision-making related to biodiversity– which results in less attention on, and prioritization of, women’s needs and interests regarding biodiversity use. At the same time, research shows that including women in natural resource management can lead to better outcomes for biodiversity. Evidence from India and Nepal shows that including women in forest management groups can lead to better resource governance and conservation outcomes.
The impact of biodiversity loss on increasing vulnerabilities, and the lack of opportunity for women to engage and take a leadership role in decision-making, lead women to be significantly and disproportionately disadvantaged by biodiversity loss and habitat degradation. Biodiversity loss is not only an environmental problem, but also an issue of social justice and human rights – including women’s rights. We must continue to bring attention to these issues, foster awareness, and the impetus for action to address the needs of women in the same way we consider those of men. Supporting women’s collectives, their participation in biodiversity-based value chains, skills development and capacity building, and engaging men and boys are all measures that can help generate win-wins for biodiversity and women and girls. Biodiversity initiatives that incorporate such measures can help enhance economic empowerment of women and their voice in decision-making as well as improve household equality, and can contribute to biodiversity outcomes, such as sustainable management of native species and ecologically sound farming practices, among many others.
