Puerto Iguazú, Argentina - 22 August 2024
Experts from across Latin America and the Caribbean have called for decisive action in protecting the region’s biodiversity from the twin global threats of climate change and habitat destruction, which they see as interconnected crises, highlighting how investments in conservation can generate positive economic returns and ensure climate stability.
The urgent call to action came at the close of a Latin America and Caribbean Countries biodiversity finance dialogue organized by United Nations Development Programme's Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP-BIOFIN) in Argentina this week, with government officials and biodiversity finance experts from 15 countries in the region in attendance.
The planetary crises – climate change and biodiversity loss - are the gravest threats to sustainable development and global stability, experts said.
Although half of global GDP—the most commonly accepted measure of economic activity—is dependent on nature, balance sheets and national economic planning rarely account for nature as an asset to be protected to safeguard economic gains and social stability.
The opening session featured a moving appeal by Delfin Benitez, a community leader of the indigenous Guaraní people of South America, who described the role nature plays in the Guaraní creation story, and in their social traditions.
Photo: Camila Lannini, UNDP Argentina
Globally, over US$820 billion is needed every year to restore and protect ecosystems at a scale that can avert a planetary crisis that scientists are describing as the 6th Mass Extinction—with over a million plants and species facing extinction because of the impacts of human activity.
This urgent call to action comes ahead of three major United Nations conferences on biodiversity, desertification and climate coming up later this year. The COP16 on biodiversity will be held in Cali, Colombia in October this year.
“UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative is working with governments and the private sector to demonstrate how a global shift in finance and economics can not only protect nature but also create jobs and combat climate change,” said Onno van den Heuvel, Head of the Biodiversity Finance Portfolio at UNDP.
“We are supporting 132 countries to shore up their biodiversity protection through sustainable biodiversity finance plans that can drive a global shift in public and private financing for nature,” said van den Heuvel.