No extra funds for biodiversity at UN meeting, as vast majority of EU natural treasures left unprotected

by · EUobserver

Białowieża forest in Poland is one of Europe’s oldest undisturbed ecosystems, key for local biodiversity. Countries scramble to meet the goal of protecting 30 percent of damaged nature by 2030. (Source: EPA/ARTUR RESZKO POLAND OUT)

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By Zuzanna Stawiska,
Brussels
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Spending on repairing damaged ecosystems would need to rise fourfold to almost $300bn (€269m) to meet the natural protection goal which UN countries set in 2022, a new report has found.

Some 250m hectares of natural ecosystems, or an area the size of Kazakhstan, is currently under protection to let it regenerate, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) study.

Presented at the biodiversity conference in Yerevan on Thursday (29 October), the authors said the result was “encouraging,” though it still amounted to only 34 percent of the goal environment ministers from across the world had set themselves for 2030.

At sea and in freshwater ecosystems, the situation was very different, with only 11m hectares protected.

Protecting natural areas degraded by human activity, such as pollution or overfishing, is key to preserving local species and biodiversity.

UNEP says restoring even 15 percent of priority areas would mean six in 10 species projected to go extinct could be spared.

And while nature restoration is key for food and water security, it is also important for climate resilience, the European Environment Agency (EEA) spokesperson told EUobserver.

The UN agency’s report is the first to gather data for land and water environments and evaluate progress in biodiversity conservation targets there, just as two weeks of negotiations at the biannual ‘COP 17’ meeting close on Friday.

We are “still not restoring nature at the scale or speed required,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director, in a statement, urging countries to step up their efforts by the 2030 deadline.

The summit is to conclude with plans for the next four years, dubbed the Yerevan Pathway, but significant financial commitments remain unlikely.

Jutta Paulus, a German Greens MEP representing the European Parliament at the conference, said “chronic underfunding” of biodiversity protection is the “main obstacle on our way to food security, a functioning economy and prosperity.”

In terms of ocean restoration, the EU needs "significantly greater investment in restoration, monitoring, and enforcement" to ensure real effects, saaid Nicolas Fournier, campaign director at Oceana in Europe, a marine protection NGO.

"Restoring an area with public money only to allow destructive activities to continue is not restoration – it is a waste of public resources," he told EUobserver.

In the EU, protected areas amounted to 26 percent of land in 2024, and less than 14 percent of the sea area in 2023, according to EEA data.

To reach the 30 percent target by 2030, member states have to develop national plans, reviewed by the commission and the EEA.

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Białowieża forest in Poland is one of Europe's oldest undisturbed ecosystems, key for local biodiversity. Countries scramble to meet the goal of protecting 30 percent of damaged nature by 2030. (Source: EPA/ARTUR RESZKO POLAND OUT)

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Zuzanna Stawiska is a junior reporter covering European affairs. She also writes stories for The European Correspondent.

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