Display of the Biodiversity Intactness Index, developed by the Natural History Museum, on display at the Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. Credit: Natural History Museum.
You might be thinking it’s curious for a museum of any kind to have something to say about global biodiversity policy targets. But the Natural History Museum is far more than a beloved visitor attraction and a catalogue of the natural world.
I’m Charlie, and I’m part of the Policy Unit at the Natural History Museum. Over the past few years, we have been combining our scientific expertise with our public reach to help inform effective implementation of 30by30 – a significant global biodiversity target to conserve and manage 30% of land, waters and seas by 2030 – which the UK has committed to.
How do we do this? Our nearly 500 scientists and students work to find nature-based solutions to some of the biggest environmental challenges we face. This includes the researchers who developed the Biodiversity Intactness Index, which is widely recognised as one of the most scientifically robust tools for modelling and understanding local biodiversity around the world.
This is important. If we can’t understand properly what the state of biodiversity worldwide is and, crucially, how it is changing, we can’t know how best to respond.
Making nature protection meaningful
That’s why we are taking this data and applying it to the trickiest environmental challenges that decisionmakers face.
30by30 is one of those challenges. We know the need – some scientists even believe the target should go further – and we have the buy-in to do it. What’s not clear, however, is how best to go about it.
Questions remain over which 30% we should protect, what we should prioritise when considering where to protect, and how to make sure protection is meaningful and not just progress-on-paper.
Our findings on 30by30 are helping to answer some of these outstanding questions. They highlight the importance of protecting the land that delivers the most critical ecosystem services, upon which over six billion people depend for their wellbeing. They also underscore the importance of ensuring that protected areas effectively safeguard biodiversity, which at the moment is declining faster on average across the global protected areas network than outside it.
The impact of these findings reverberates far beyond the walls of conventional environment ministries, with consequences not only for wider national resilience and wellbeing, but also for our ability to meet our climate change targets too.
Our latest analysis also shows that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to achieving 30by30. In fact, how we achieve it and what the world looks like as a result will differ significantly depending on how we value nature, whether prioritising qualities such as endemic species, ecosystem services or cultural landscapes.
Map showing global terrestrial protected areas, the top 30% of land delivering the most critical ecosystem services, and the overlap between the two. Developed by the Natural History Museum.From data to action
We are now working hard to take this data out of its spreadsheets and into the hands of delivery partners. We want every community in the UK and internationally to have access to it, empowering everyone to make the best-informed science-backed decisions they can.
For policymakers, this means providing this data and analysis freely and on-demand to anyone around the world, with access to country-level data and maps of biodiversity change.
Already, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office embassies in regions across the world are using this data and analysis in conversations with partners on the ground to inform local conservation strategies.
For businesses, this means licensing our Biodiversity Intactness Index data to corporates and financial institutions including Bloomberg and BlackRock so that companies can understand their impact on nature and alter their investment and business decisions accordingly.
And for the public, this means sharing this work in a way that galvanises momentum and support for initiatives such as 30by30.
The National Education Nature Park is a Department for Education-sponsored project led by the Natural History Museum in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society and others.
It is addressing the interconnected challenges of climate change and nature loss by providing a framework for schools, colleges and nurseries in England to enhance young people’s connection with nature and encourage science-backed action for the planet.
The programme is included in Defra’s 30by30 Delivery Plan as an example of how to inspire public participation and buy-in for nature recovery and policy ambition.
Pupil completes a grassland plant survey in their school grounds, as part of the National Education Nature Park. Credit: Natural History Museum.Looking forward
As COP17 continues in its second week, we are out in Armenia with our partners to talk about our analysis on 30by30 and our broader work, while connecting with the international community.
This includes working with our partners at the Zoological Society of London and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as the UK Biodiversity Alliance, through which we are building optimism by showcasing practical and scalable examples of integrated climate and nature action that are already taking place all around the world.
While the science can be stark, our aim is to share hope. With the right data and the right intentions, meaningful progress for nature can be made. We’ll be advocates for that both at COP17 and beyond.
To find out more about the Natural History Museum’s activities mentioned in this blog, contact Charlie Gold at c.gold@nhm.ac.uk.
seen at 11:30, 27 October in Environment.