Act now to invest in nature or face biodiversity collapse and further pandemics, ‘Wildlife Conservation 20’ warns G20

• ‘WC20’ gathers 20 leading conservation groups ahead of G20 Leaders’ Summit
• COVID-19 highlights need for urgent action, joint declaration warns
• Investing in planetary health costs a fraction of pandemic response while driving green jobs and tackling climate change

 A new initiative involving 20 of the world’s leading conservation organisations today issued an unprecedented joint declaration to the G20 calling for urgent action to invest in nature to protect biodiversity and reduce the risk of future pandemics.

World leaders gathering in Riyadh this weekend have an unparalleled opportunity to build into COVID-19 economic recovery long-lasting action to conserve planetary health and address our mistreatment of nature.

While the exact source of the virus remains uncertain, scientists agree that just like HIV, Ebola, SARS, Bird Flu, and MERS, COVID-19 is zoonotic: it jumped from animals to people, likely as a result of our increasing interface and interaction with wildlife.

The pandemic, which has killed 1.3 million people to date and affected hundreds of millions more, stands as one of the starkest and most urgent warnings yet that our current relationship with nature is unsustainable.

Investment in nature – including ending deforestation, controlling the wildlife trade, and enhancing livelihoods of people living in or depending on natural landscapes – is not a luxury to consider alongside pandemic recovery, the WC20 said.

Protecting biodiversity is perhaps the most important component of government recovery plans that will significantly reduce the risk of future pandemics and avoid similar or greater human, economic, and environmental harm.

The cost of these investments is a fraction of the estimated $26 trillion in economic damage COVID-19 has already caused. By one recent estimate, $700 billion a year would reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2030. That is about one-fortieth the cost of the economic fallout from the current pandemic.

Much of this does not need to be new money. A significant proportion of this investment could come from redirecting existing harmful financing, for example in subsidies that encourage deforestation and environmental destruction.

Investing in planetary health including directing climate finance towards nature-based solutions drives green growth and green jobs and takes us a long way towards tackling the effects of climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate.

With lives and livelihoods adversely affected by COVID-19 across the globe, there is public consensus and support as never before for governments to act now to protect and re-establish a healthier relationship with nature.

This is the watershed moment that prompted the formation of the Wildlife Conservation 20, or WC20, uniting 20 of the most prominent conservation NGOs at the forefront of protecting wildlife and ecosystems.

The WC20 represents the voice of this conservation community, which has come together to articulate the steps needed to seize this unprecedented opportunity.

In a joint statement, the WC20 said: “COVID-19 has been a wake-up call to everyone on this planet. Now is the time to value and invest in nature by developing sustainable nature-based economic stimulus packages that embrace a One Health approach and address long-term planetary health, food security, poverty alleviation, climate change, and biodiversity loss and work towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“That is why the WC20 calls on the G20 nations to implement greater investment in addressing this critical present imbalance with nature. Otherwise, the natural world, on which we all rely, will not be safeguarded for the long-term well-being and security of current and future human generations, and for all life on earth.”

Ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit on 21 and 22 November in Riyadh, CEOs and senior executives from the WC20, including the CEOs of Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), and Freeland – all three members of the EndPandemics alliance – gathered on 19 November for a high-level virtual summit, hosted by Space for Giants and ESI Media to agree a joint declaration identifying priority actions for world leaders.

The full text of the Declaration is available at spaceforgiants.org/WC20. In summary, the WC20’s recommendations are:

• Policy and Implementation: Strengthen, sufficiently resource, and implement existing international and domestic legislation, and enact new legislation, to ensure the legal, sustainable, and traceable use of natural resources including wildlife, that no longer threatens human or animal health.
• Law Enforcement: Scale up financial and technical support for law enforcement in key wildlife source states, transit hubs and destination countries/territories. Adopt a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to help create an effective deterrent to wildlife crime.
• Safeguard Natural Ecosystems: Secure government support, adequate finances, and technical expertise to effectively protect and manage natural ecosystems and wildlife so that they are valued and safeguarded, and become generators of economic wealth, and commit to scale this up to 30% of land and sea over the coming decade.
• Support Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Recognise and respect the rights of IPLCs living within and/or depending on natural ecosystems, to improve human well-being, alleviate the pressures of human-wildlife coexistence, and reduce, halt, and reverse the loss of natural habitats and the associated wildlife they hold.
• Reduce Demand: Work with government authorities, stakeholders, civil society, and major influencers to inform the public about the dangers of zoonotic spillovers and how to lower their risks. Raise public awareness about, and reduce demand for, illegally and/or unsustainably exploited wildlife and their products.

These organisations make up the WC20:

“If the G20 were to ask for the bottom line of our request, I would say it boils down to two asks,” said Freeland CEO Steve Galster. “First: Adopt a ‘One Health Policy’ that simultaneously safeguards the health of people, animals and ecosystems to mitigate the risk of more pandemics. Second: Stop commercial trade in wild animals until and unless it can be guaranteed that such trade cannot facilitate transmission of viruses or threaten the species. I personally think the better-safe-than-sorry approach for our planet is best, and we should just ban the commercial trade in wild animals.”

“Today, the entire world struggles to contain and ultimately bring an end to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Sadly, this is not the first deadly zoonotic disease and almost certainly will not be the last,” said Vu Thi Quyen, Executive Director and Founder of Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV). “We strongly urge G20 leaders to take active measures to aggressively and proactively address high-risk areas associated with zoonotic diseases originating from wildlife, and in doing so, prevent and eliminate the next virus before it has an opportunity to become yet another global pandemic.”

“The pandemic is symptomatic of our climate and biodiversity crises and we’re looking for signs that governments are serious about transformative change”, said Debbie Banks, Campaign Leader for Tigers & Wildlife Crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). “Far greater investment in the expertise and mechanisms needed to disrupt transnational organised wildlife crime networks is critical, to put them behind bars and hit them where it hurts, in the bank balance. We urge governments to amend laws to close domestic markets where wildlife is still traded for luxury purposes, including for medicine and decorative items. Recognising that the business of breeding wildlife for trade in their body parts creates opportunities for crime and corruption and stimulates demand, we call for an end to commercial wildlife farming.  

“We applaud the convenors of the WC20 process for their proactive outreach and engaging a diverse set of perspectives toward a converging strong outcome. The WC20 declaration specifically calls upon the G20 Leaders “to create the enabling framework for effective actions to deliver solutions on the ground, while monitoring and evaluating their impact, and recognising and championing success and deterring transgressions,” which is exactly at the core of the EndPandemics engagement model: identify, sharpen and replicate solutions that impact frontline actions, public policies, business practices and consumer behaviours,” said Dr Andrey Kushlin, rotating chair of EndPandemics alliance and senior advisor with Transparent World in Moscow.

“We promote the strongest precautionary approach in the name of wildlife and human security. EndPandemics is working toward an end to commercial trade in wild animals. We also advocate for closing commercial wildlife farming, wherever it cannot be guaranteed that such business will not harm human health or biodiversity. The latest reports connecting mainstream mink farms to SARS-CoV-2 virus mutations further demonstrate that we cannot be too careful. It’s time to switch the onus of the burden of proof onto the commercial traders and to stop allowing short-term interests to ruin our planetary health,” emphasized Kushlin.

EndPandemics is a global alliance and action campaign that strives to reduce the risks of pandemics by addressing the root causes of zoonotic outbreaks – commercial wildlife trade, disruption of wild habitats, and wildlife dependence of poverty-affected livelihoods. The alliance was launched in April 2020 and comprises a fast-growing array of organizations (presently over 60) that operate across five continents in conservation, agriculture, climate, health, business, technology, security, media, and other sectors.

ESI Media co-hosted the WC20 summit as part of its global campaign to Stop The Illegal Wildlife trade, in partnership with co-host and WC20 member Space for Giants.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Media Contacts

Education for Nature Vietnam (https://env4wildlife.org/): [email protected]

Environmental Investigation Agency (https://eia-international.org/): [email protected]

Freeland (https://www.freeland.org/): [email protected]

Full text of the declaration is available here: www.spaceforgiants.org/WC20.