This is a day to celebrate: that biodiversity is recognised across the globe, right?  The theme this year is linked to Sustainable Development.  The focus is on efforts to integrate biodiversity targets into Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).  All the buzz words and acronyms but how does it translate into actions? The goals were part of the outcome document from the Rio+20 Summit and are expected to become part of the United Nations (UN) overarching development agenda beyond 2015. There are currently 17 objectives, and the first is to ‘end poverty in all its forms everywhere’, with other goals focusing on resilient infrastructure, gender empowerment and sustainable use of natural resources.

“Biodiversity and ecosystems should be integrated and into the UN post 2015 sustainable development agenda,” says Susan Brown, Director of Global and Regional Policy at World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Andrew Deutz, Director of International Government Relations at The Nature Conservancy explains further : ” The focus of Goal 15, for example, encompasses sustainable management of ecosystems and halting and reversing land degradation and biodiversity loss. There are indicators within the SDG on food security that mention sustainable agriculture,” says Deutz. “Another Goal that deals with water discusses restoring freshwater ecosystems and managing water resources with integrated approaches.”

Deutz says one of the most important notions to come out of the SDG panel was that the environment is not a stand-alone pillar. “Environment and natural resource management need to be integrated across the full spectrum of other goals,” he says. So success looks like achievements that conserve the environment while also ensuring food security. Are these goals really achievable? In March this year during a visit to London I was lucky to get to the Syngenta Photography Exhibition held at Somerset House.  The theme explores global challenges and was titled:  “Scarcity Waste”  and was represented under four themes: “Planet under Pressure”, “Our Footprint”, “Food Waste”, and “Shaping our Future”. A picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes, and how relevant it is in this context.   The photographers captured seeringly desolate scenes,  scenes that chill the heart.  On the one hand the plight of the desparately poor and on the other the extravagant waste of the first world populations.  As more than 800 million people got to bed hungry worldwide, others throw away over half of the food they buy.  A third of the world’s food prodution is lost or wasted along the supply chain.  In a world of limited resources, scarcity and waste have become fundamental social, political and environmental issues of our time.  Something needs to change! Text and photographs below are those displayed at the Syngenta Photography Exhibition under the theme:

“Planet under Pressure”

“Our demands on nature are increasing: we are eating into our natural capital, making it more difficult to sustain the needs of the future. We have become the dominant force that is both shaping and altering the planet as a whole. Our impact is no longer local; it’s global. The effect of a growing human population will multiply the pressure we place on natural resources.  Our challenge is to ensure that there is enough land, food and water for future generations.”

http://www.eileencrist.com/images/pdf/Crist-Choosing-a-Planet-of-Life.pdf http://www.populationspeakout.org Further reading on SBD’s  https://www.cbd.int/sbstta/doc/trondheim-full-paper-2-sdgs-en.pdf

“The economic and social needs of human populations will

continue to rely on wild species, which implies that these will

have to be used in a sustainable way, avoiding any threats of

extinction. Solutions involve much more than looking at all

living things as an economic resource, they are about changing

legal and institutional frameworks as well as individual habits,

particularly in industrialized nations, if species are to be saved.

The CBD* has not reached this level of action to drive changes

in economic systems that currently allow species to be over-

exploited and placed on the verge of extinction”

* Convention on Biological Diversity