May 22nd 2022 marks the International Day for Biological Diversity.
The theme of this year’s day is “Building a shared future for all life”, highlighting that biodiversity is the foundation upon which we can build back better.
There is a growing recognition that biological diversity is a global asset of tremendous value to future generations. However, the number of species is still being significantly reduced by certain human activities and current extinction rates are higher than ever before in history.
Land degradation is a driver for biodiversity loss and land use reduces natural habitat size and degrades ecosystems, thereby leading to species extinctions. The IRP think piece “Land Restoration for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”, concluded that both the process of land restoration and rehabilitation, and the restored land, can have significant co-benefits for all the SDGs.
Moreover, sustainable management of natural resources is needed to limit biodiversity loss. The IRP Global Resources Outlook 2019 highlights that 90 per cent of biodiversity loss, 50 per cent of climate change impact, and a third of air pollution are caused by the extraction and processing of natural resources. The opinion piece “Building Biodiversity- The Natural Resource Management Approach”, written by IRP Co-Chairs Janez Potočnik and Izabella Teixeira outlines four principles to turn biodiversity loss into biodiversity value through Natural Resource Management.