FAQ
Building on the Beyond Aichi sessions held at the World Parks Congress in Sydney in 2014, the purpose of the WCPA’s Beyond the Aichi Targets Task Force is two-fold:
1. To help build global momentum for the Promise of Sydney to scale up conservation, using protected areas as the key conservation tool, and
2. To ensure that, in 2020, new global conservation targets for spatial conservation are set that would be meaningful for achieving the CBD’s basic purpose, which is the conservation of biological diversity and the halting of biodiversity loss.
Informed by the best available science, and a range of perspectives, the Task Force will ask and seek to answer what are truly sustainable conservation targets. It is understood that in a world of 7.5 billion, the targets will vary by ecological and social conditions and thus will require an ecoregion by ecoregion approach. The Task Force will not endeavour to impose a “one size fits all” approach.
The Task Force holds in person consultations around the world, has conducted a large global scientific survey (soon to be published) and has conducted an extensive literature review relating to conservation targets (soon to be published). It is exploring the idea that there are Three Global Conditions for Biodiversity Conservation that require separate approaches for conservation no matter what an overall percentage target for protected and conserved areas might be. The Task Force also engages in one-on-one conversations with Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and other sectors of society. Its office is in Banff National Park, Canada.
More information about the IUCN Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
Conservation targets have been demonstrated to encourage conservation. Those things that are measured tend to get done.
Conservation targets began in the 1980s and have become very important today. For a history of conservation targets, see The International Movement to Protect Half the World: Origins, Scientific Foundations, and Policy Implications (Locke, 2018).
No. As the Aichi Targets are designed to be implemented by 2020, “Beyond Aichi” indicates what global conservation targets should be after, or post, 2020.
The current target Aichi Biodiversity Targets have some links to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 14 and 15, and ecological integrity is considered important in the Paris Agreement. That said, there is a great need to better integrate the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the SDGs.
The IUCN is the world’s largest international environmental network of organizations and experts and contributes knowledge and tools to public, private, and non-governmental organizations to promote human progress and nature conservation together.
The World Commission on Protected Areas is one of six commissions of the IUCN that assess the state of the world’s natural resources and provide the IUCN with expert scientific and policy advice.
The Beyond the Aichi Targets Task Force was appointed by IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).
The Task Force is focused on the post-2020 framework that will be developed under the CBD in Beijing in 2020. It interacts with the Secretariat and the Parties to the Convention but is not formally a part of either.
This site uses cookies. Find out more about cookies and how you can refuse them.