Deep, fundamental shifts in how people view and interact with the natural world are urgently needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and safeguard life on Earth, warns a landmark new report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
According to a statement from IPBES sent to Nigerian Tribune, the IPBES Assessment Report on the “Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss and the Determinants of Transformative Change and Options for Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity,” also known as the “Transformative Change Report,” builds on the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report, which found that the only way to achieve global development goals is through transformative change, and on the 2022 IPBES Values Assessment Report.
Prepared over three years by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries from all regions of the world, the report explains what transformative change is, how it occurs, and how to accelerate it for a just and sustainable world.
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“Transformative change for a just and sustainable world is urgent because there is a closing window of opportunity to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and the projected collapse of key ecosystem functions,” said Prof. Karen O’Brien (Norway/USA), co-chair of the assessment with Professor Arun Agrawal (India & USA) and Professor Lucas Garibaldi (Argentina).
“Under current trends, there is a serious risk of crossing several irreversible biophysical tipping points including die-off of low altitude coral reefs, die back of the Amazon rainforest, and loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Transformative change is also necessary because most previous and current approaches to conservation, which aim to reform rather than transform systems, have failed to halt or reverse the decline of nature around the world, which has serious repercussions for the global economy and human well-being,” he added.
The cost of delaying actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and nature’s decline around the world by even a decade is estimated to be double that of acting now, the report noted.
