From the food we eat to the air we breathe, our basic needs are met by the incredible variety of animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and protozoa. But this biodiversity is threatened: we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction. Species are disappearing at a rate 1,000 times faster than ever before in the planet’s history – faster than the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. And the fault is of one kind: the Homo sapienswhich has been destroying habitats, polluting the atmosphere and causing global warming.
The proximity of the final phase of negotiations for a new agreement of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to be presented at the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) in December, in Canada, gives an extra push to the scientific community to stop this scenario.
The draft of the new agreement, called the Post-2020 Global Framework for Biodiversity, is ambitious and envisages targets such as decreasing the rate of species extinction by ten times, increasing the area of ​​preserved ecosystems by 5%, and conserving up to 90% of the diversity genetics of all species by 2050. But the truth is that most countries, including Brazil, do not have official biodiversity monitoring systems to guide and follow up on these goals.
“We hope to achieve ambitious goals, but in reality we cannot reliably estimate our progress,” says Andrew Gonzalez, a biologist at McGill University in Canada and co-chair of the Global Biodiversity Observation Network (Geobon), a nonprofit partner of CBD
In the last two decades, Gonzalez and other scientists linked to Geobon have created regional networks for monitoring biodiversity in different biomes and ecosystems on the planet. Different approaches are used to collect this data, from fieldwork to analysis of satellite imagery and, more recently, the revolutionary environmental DNA technology, which accurately identifies genetic traits of all species in a sample.
But these monitoring networks are still sparse and fragmented. There is currently no global and integrated effort to monitor the planet’s biodiversity. Now, Gonzalez and about 50 other scientists aim to change that scenario. The group met behind closed doors at the World Biodiversity Forum last month in Switzerland to set out a plan to create a global biodiversity monitoring system.
“We have seen a revolution in technology and in how we study and measure nature, but the world is not yet organized to work together and build a global network that allows us to study biodiversity in any country,” says Gonzalez.
The challenge is great: scientists estimate that there are more than 8.7 million species on Earth. And monitoring biodiversity is not restricted to counting species, but monitoring other factors such as genetic diversity, ecological functions and the dispersion of organisms.
“It seems very utopian, but either we do it or we go to the swamp”, says Brazilian biologist Ana Carnaval, from the City University of New York (CUNY), in the USA. “We are already doing this with the climate, but we have to do it for all species. We need a global observatory to generate reports on the health of the planet and to know what we are already losing, what the trajectory will be and how to change this terrible scenario. “
The group intends to present an initial plan at COP 15 to convince decision-makers and the private sector of the importance of financing the ambitious project. The scientists explain that they would start by integrating existing monitoring data and networks and then fostering the creation of new networks. The global system would be both a large network of monitoring initiatives around the world and an online repository where generated data and models for predicting biodiversity changes would be freely available.
The tool would help answer questions such as the number of species in a given region, their genetic diversity and their eventual adaptation to climate change. A global system would also provide insights into questions that are still elusive, such as determining what the tipping points or points of no return, when the loss of certain species leads to ecological collapse.
“Those tipping points occur abruptly and to predict them we need to be able to detect the first signs of danger, which can only be done with constant monitoring”, explains Gonzalez. “Today, in most cases, we only realize these points when we It’s too late and there’s no turning back.”
The idea is that in addition to providing data to guide conservation policies, the tool can serve as a model for countries that do not yet have such systems. “We would provide countries with a framework [estrutura básica] what they need to monitor to understand the impact of conservation policies on biodiversity,” says ecologist Cornelia Krug, one of the project’s leaders, from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
But challenges abound, starting with the availability and disparity of data on biodiversity. Although there are more than 2 billion data in one of the most used repositories today, the Global Biodiversity Information (GBIF), 80% of them relate to just 10 countries, including the United States and European nations – which are not among the richest in biodiversity. . Even data on Brazil’s biodiversity, for example, are mostly generated by foreign initiatives.
Poorer countries will need more investment to start setting up their monitoring structures. “It would be super cool if we had all the money in the world to monitor all Brazilian biomes, for example,” says Carnaval. “This is far from being a reality, but it is a major goal of this biodiversity science community.”
The research culture itself is another challenge, as many scientists are not used to sharing their data. Often, research data is reserved for publication of articles in journals with a paid and restricted subscription. But Gonzalez believes there is already a culture shift towards sharing more. “It’s a matter of engagement and trust,” he says.
Another problem is reaching consensus on the indicators and measures that should be used for monitoring. While climate scientists are well ahead in this regard, using common indicators to measure the progress of global warming and models that speak the same language in every country, the biodiversity people are still trying to understand each other.
“We’re still fighting over which variables have to be there,” says Carnaval. “There are things that are already a convention and others that are still being discussed. We will arrive at COP15 with a very crude outline, but it is a vision for the future.”
University of Connecticut biologist Mark Urban, who is not directly involved in the project, says a global effort like this is “one of the best things we could do to facilitate the protection of biodiversity.” For years, Urban has been pushing for a global platform to share biodiversity prediction models. “Without foresight it is very difficult to create effective conservation strategies,” he says. “Because we end up losing money on species that are doing well and leaving out those that are really at risk.”
There is still no estimate of the costs to set up this global monitoring system, which is expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But scientists are optimistic. “For the first time, we have a dual interest of governments and the private sector in conserving biodiversity”, says Gonzalez. According to him, if the plan is accepted at COP15 and there is funding, the group could have a pilot ready for use in 2030. “The time is now.”
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Sofia Moutinho is a journalist. This text was produced with a travel grant from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network’s Biodiversity Media Initiative to the World Biodiversity Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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