What the official adoption of the Kunming Declaration means

Source: Guangming Daily

On 13 October 2021, Kunming, Yunnan, China, the Kunming Declaration was officially adopted at the first high-level meeting of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

As one of the main outcomes of the Conference, the Kunming Declaration commits to ensuring the development, adoption and implementation of an effective Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to reverse current biodiversity loss trends and to put biodiversity on the path to restoration by 2030 at the latest, thereby fully realizing the 2050 vision of "harmonious coexistence between man and nature".

Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment, stressed at the meeting that the main purpose of the "Kunming Declaration" is to reflect the political will of all parties and send out to the international community the strong determination and consensus of all parties to carry out actions in the field of biodiversity conservation. He stressed that the "Kunming Declaration" is a political declaration and hopes that the declaration will provide political impetus for the relevant consultation process.

Obviously, the adoption of the "Kunming Declaration" will affect the future of mankind and the fate of the blue planet. At a press conference held on the evening of October 13, Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that the "Kunming Declaration" embodies the consensus of all parties, reflects the political determination of all parties to take action to address the challenge of biodiversity and jointly build a community of life on earth, and will play a leading role in formulating and implementing the "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework", providing a basis and political guidance for subsequent consultations and negotiations.

"The incomplete achievement of the Aichi Targets (the 2011-2020 biodiversity targets set by the United Nations) means that biodiversity conservation is facing serious challenges, and the Kunming Declaration is a prelude to future biodiversity conservation efforts." Ren Hai, director of the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the "Kunming Declaration" is a "good medicine" for the problems that have existed in the implementation of the treaty in the past.

Gao Jixi, director of the Satellite Environmental Application Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, summarized the content of the "Kunming Declaration" with 12 words of "consolidating consensus, looking forward to the vision, and exploring the path". "Biodiversity conservation cannot be achieved on a biological basis, nor can it be achieved by a single measure, a single action, a single country, a single organization." In his view, there were many innovations in the Declaration, in particular the emphasis on the use of integrated and coordinated approaches to address biodiversity decline.

"The 'Kunming Declaration' has three characteristics: timeliness, long-term and scientific." Li Junsheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, believes that in the context of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the sharp decline in global biodiversity, the adoption of the "Kunming Declaration" is very timely, which provides guidance for biodiversity conservation in the next 10 or even 20 years, and also makes every step of the goal have a scientific assessment.

(Kunming, October 13, this newspaper reporter Zhang Lei Guangming Network reporter Cai Lin)