Implementation of international agreements

Convention on Biological Diversity

All the counties in the Barents Region have ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, dedicating to promote sustainable development. However, the target of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 was not achieved. The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. The challenge of safeguarding biodiversity is global.

Biodiversity Targets by 2020

In October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan, the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) committed to a new target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has seventeen cross-cutting programmes, including the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA). Establishing new protected areas is an important tool to reach the Aichi Nagoya biodiversity target by 2020.

AICHI BIODIVERSITY TARGET 5
”By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 per
cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance
for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and
equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems
of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures,
and integrated into the wider landscape and seascape.”

 

AICHI BIODIVERSITY TARGET 11
”By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at
least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and
fragmentation is significantly reduced.”

Consequently the Programme of Work on Protected Areas has set a conservation target of 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10% of marine and coastal areas. The CBD PoWPA provides a globally-accepted framework for creating comprehensive, effectively managed and sustainably funded national and regional protected area systems around the globe.

The CBD PoWPA was used as a framework for the BPAN project. The project evaluated the Barents protected area network in relation to the CBD PoWPA, providing a northern boreal perspective, as a regional case, to support the global implementation of the Programme.

Read more:

Evaluation of the Barents Protected Area Network using PoWPA as a tool