Ahead of ‘WC20’ meeting this weekend’s G20 Leaders’ Summit to warn that COVID-19 highlights need for urgent action – and urge that investing in nature costs a fraction of pandemic response, while driving green jobs and tackling climate change.
In Riyadh this weekend, the world leaders will be gathering to have an unparalleled opportunity to build into COVID-19 economic recovery plans specifications to conserve planetary health and reset human interactions with nature.
The cost of conservation investment is a fraction of the estimated $26 trillion in economic damage COVID-19 has already caused. An estimated $700 billion a year investment would reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2030. That’s about one-fortieth the cost of the economic fallout from the current pandemic.
A significant proportion of this investment could come from redirecting existing harmful financing, for example in subsidies that encourage deforestation and environmental destruction.
While the exact source of the virus remains uncertain, scientists agree that just like HIV, Ebola, SARS, Bird Flu, and MERS, COVID-19 is zoonotic: it jumped from animals to people, likely as a result of our increasing interaction with and encroachment on wildlife and their habitats.
The pandemic, which has killed 1.3 million people to date and affected hundreds of millions more, stands as one of the starkest and most urgent warnings yet that our current relationship with nature is unsustainable. The ongoing destruction of nature across our shared planet can be substantially reduced with positive economic and ecological outcomes.
Investment in nature – including ending deforestation, controlling the wildlife trade, and enhancing livelihoods of people living in or depending on natural landscapes – is not a luxury to consider alongside pandemic recovery, the WC20 said.
Protecting biodiversity is a fundamental component of government recovery plans that will significantly reduce the risk of future pandemics and avoid similar or greater human, economic, and environmental harm.
Investing in planetary health drives green growth and green jobs and takes us a long way towards tackling the effects of climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate.
With lives and livelihoods adversely affected by COVID-19 across the globe, there is public consensus and support as never before for governments to act now to protect and re-establish a healthier relationship with nature
This is the watershed moment that prompted BirdLife International to help form Wildlife Conservation 20, or WC20, uniting 20 of the most prominent conservation NGOs at the forefront of protecting wildlife and ecosystems.
