Biodiversity and the Wider Environmental Issues

In one line

MU sets a short note linking biodiversity to environmental issues generally, and the answer is that biodiversity is connected to every other subject in this paper, in both directions.

The six connections

One: climate. Warming drives biodiversity loss through range shift, coral bleaching and ocean acidification. And biodiversity loss drives warming, because forests, peatlands, mangroves and marine organisms are the sinks that article 4, paragraph 1(d), of the Framework Convention requires Parties to conserve and enhance. The connection runs both ways and an answer should say so.

Two: the marine environment. Article 194, paragraph 5, of the Law of the Sea Convention requires measures to include those necessary to protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems as well as the habitat of depleted, threatened or endangered species and other forms of marine life. That is a biodiversity obligation inside the marine treaty, and the South China Sea award applied it to a coral reef.

Three: hazardous substances. Persistent organic pollutants and mercury accumulate in food chains and reach the top predators first. The Stockholm Convention 2001 and the Minamata Convention 2013 are biodiversity instruments in effect, though they are drafted as chemicals instruments.

Four: trade. CITES regulates biodiversity through the market, and Rio Principle 12's limits on trade measures apply to it. The whole of the trade chapter in Module I is relevant to any biodiversity question about enforcement.

Five: human rights and livelihood. Communities dependent on a forest or a fishery lose their livelihood when it degrades, which is the human development link. Article 8(j) and article 10(c) of the biodiversity convention protect the practices of those communities, and Rio Principle 22 requires their effective participation.

Six: development and finance. Conservation costs money in countries that have little, and article 20 of the biodiversity convention is the obligation, article 21 the mechanism.

The two directions

Set these out as two lists and the note writes itself.

Biodiversity as a victim of other pressures. Climate change, pollution, land conversion for development, overfishing, and the waste trade where it reaches habitats.

Biodiversity as part of the answer to other problems. Sinks for carbon; mangroves and reefs as storm defence; wetlands for water purification and flood control; genetic variety as the raw material of crop and drug development; and pollinators for food production.

The second list is why the phrase nature-based solutions appears in modern negotiation, and why the Kunming-Montreal framework and the climate regime now refer to each other.

Worked example

A coastal State plans to convert mangrove to a port.

• Biodiversity. Loss of habitat, nursery grounds and species.
• Climate. Loss of a carbon store and of a storm buffer, so both mitigation and adaptation are affected.
• Marine environment. Article 194, paragraph 5, of the Law of the Sea Convention requires protection of rare or fragile ecosystems.
• Livelihood. The fishing community loses its nursery.
• Assessment. Article 14 of the biodiversity convention and the customary rule from Pulp Mills.
• Finance. Any alternative design costs more, and the incremental cost is what article 20 exists to meet.