EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030

#Ecosystem, #BioEconomy, #Biodiversity, #Nature, #EuPolicy, #2030BiodiversityTargets, #NewEconomy, #CAP, #DigiCirc, #FarmToForkStrategy, #Agriculture, #SustainabilityScience, #EcosystemServices, #BioeconomyCommunities, #BioSecurity, #Bioremediation, #SocietalActors, #BioeconomyVisions, #Resources, #Biotechnology, #Landuse, #Ecosystemservicesdelivery

EU Biodiversity Strategy contains specific commitments and actions to be delivered by 2030.   Adopted in 2020, EU Biodiversity Strategy calls for reversing biodiversity loss and restoring nature in order to ensure that it can continue to deliver its ecosystem services of providing food, health and medicines, materials, as well as recreation and wellbeing. In particular, the strategy refers to sustainable bioenergy, with the aim to reduce the use of whole trees and food and feed crops for energy production. The Strategy specifically covers agriculture (also, covered under the from Farm to Fork Strategy), climate change and energy, fisheries, forests, wildlife and urban areas as crucial domains for meeting the 2030 biodiversity targets. In the post-COVID-19 context, the Strategy aims to build our societies’ resilience to future threats such as:

• The impacts of climate change
• Forest fires
• Food insecurity
• Disease outbreaks - including by protecting wildlife and fighting illegal wildlife trade

The Strategy aims to establish a larger EU-wide network of protected areas on land and at sea, it  proposes a binding nature restoration target by the end of 2021, it introduces measures to enable the necessary transformative change, measures to tackle the global biodiversity challenge. To support the long-term sustainability of both nature and farming, this Strategy aims to complement the new Farm to Fork Strategy and the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), including by promoting eco-schemes and result-based payment schemes.

• For DigiCirc, this Strategy outlines the latest insights regarding new business cases in the area of biodiversity which are relevant for industries and companies of all sizes who rely on species, gene, ecosystem services as well as critical inputs for production, like for instance medicines. Costs for not implementing the biodiversity aspects of the environmental acquis are potentially huge and justifiable. The Strategy shows potential direct economic benefits for many sectors of the economy when implementing the biodiversity strategy. It, also, puts nature at the centre for sustainability, human wellbeing and the relaunch of the economy. For DigiCirc Project this way of ‘ecoysystem thinking’ which focuses on creating new business models by bringing nature first and taking into account biodiversity as stakeholder, might for some be a paradigm shift. The implementation of one or more visions into strategies implies changes to ecosystem service delivery which implies changes to land use with notable consequences.

Author: Arthur’s Legal, Strategies & Systems, ARL