By Sharon Atieno
With more than a third of global ecosystems present in Africa, investment in biodiversity is crucial to drive sustainable development while mitigating and potentially avoiding climate change shocks in the continent.
This is according to experts attending a Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) café on Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to achieve sustainable development.
Fred Kwame, Africa Wildlife Foundation Vice President, Global Leadership said the increasing gaps in climate and biodiversity financing affirm Africa’s missed opportunity to drive sustainable development by unlocking and growing the biodiversity economy.
Biodiversity contributes at least $125 trillion annually to global economies including Africa yet the financing gap is projected to be at $598- 824 billion per year by 2030.
“Nature essentially presents Africa with an untapped investment and green development opportunity and is a key strategic asset that can be used as a bargaining power in the global arena,” he said, adding that the global biodiversity conservation and climate agenda cannot succeed without Africa and needs to be twinned.
With an estimated 60% of Africa’s GDP coming from natural resources and essential ecosystem services, Kwame noted that the continent has enormous potential to benefit further from its natural resources as capital that finances its development ambitions.
He noted that the sustainable use of natural resources through a diversified biodiversity economy can promote conservation outcomes and sustainable development, providing employment and important financial resources (for climate change adaptation, mitigation, and development) as well as reducing risk and building resilience economically and environmentally.
On the other hand, Ken Mwathe, Policy, climate and communications coordinator, BirdLife International, Africa, said nature and healthy ecosystems can provide 30% of the cost-effective solutions, including mitigation needed to address climate change, adding that climate mitigation must include protection and restoration of intact ecosystems.
Ecosystem restoration, he said, is holistic and provides multiple benefits including adaptation, mitigation, soil restoration, land productivity as well as livelihood opportunities for local people.
According to the recently launched Africa Environment Outlook for Business report, nature restoration can unlock a business value of US$ 10 trillion and create 395 million jobs by 2030.
Additionally, Mwathe said climate adaptation must be ecosystem-based- using healthy ecosystems to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
This involves the conservation, sustainable management, and restoration of ecosystems, such as forests, grasslands, wetlands, mangroves, or coral reefs to reduce the harmful impacts of climate hazards.
The Kumning-Montreal GBF which has more than 190 nations as signatories has four overaching goals. These include maintaining, enhancing, or restoring the integrity, connectivity, and resilience of all ecosystems; halting human-induced extinction of threatened species and reducing the extinction rate and risk of all species; maintaining genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species; and sustainably using and managing biodiversity and valuing nature’s contributions to people.
