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COVID-19 Disrupts a Major Year for Biodiversity Policy and Planning

April 06, 2020 |

This article was originally published on Mongabay.


“Although the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overshadow political momentum for addressing the biodiversity crisis, it could present some new opportunities. For one, the delays will give negotiators more time to discuss the post-2020 framework. The shared experience of the pandemic could encourage greater international collaboration and solidarity. Economic stimulus packages might provide new funding for ecosystem restoration projects. “Let’s create new parks. Let’s put people to work in restoration,” [Basile van Havre, co-chair of the CBD working group on the post-2020 framework] said.

There’s also a way the experience of getting caught flat-footed by a pandemic could impress upon world governments the importance of investing in prevention, a useful lesson for early action on biodiversity loss and climate change.

“It’s an unprecedented opportunity to look into the future,” [Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, acting executive secretary of the U.N. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)] said, “particularly to be able to demonstrate statistically how cost effective it is to prevent and be prepared, as opposed to later deal with the response.”

One of the most significant outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, might be the opportunity to strengthen policy to address the relationship between biodiversity and human health, an approach often referred to as “One Health.””

Read on at: Mongabay.

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