Nature destruction an ‘existential crisis’, says UN chief

CALI, Colombia: Humanity faces an “existential crisis” caused by its rapacious destruction of life-sustaining nature, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned delegates on Tuesday at a major biodiversity summit in Colombia.

The 16th so-called Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN´s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) must make progress on the creation of monitoring and funding mechanisms to achieve 23 goals agreed in Canada two years ago to “halt and reverse” nature destruction.

Themed “Peace with Nature,” the summit has been bogged down in disagreement about modalities of funding. Negotiators are also split on how best to share the profits of digitally sequenced plant and animal genetic data -- used in medicines and cosmetics -- with the communities they come from.

Delegates have no time to waste. There are only five years left to achieve the 23 UN targets, which include placing 30 percent of land, water and ocean under protection by 2030.

“Every day, we lose more species. Every minute, we dump a garbage truck of plastic waste into our oceans, rivers and lakes. Make no mistake. This is what an existential crisis looks like,” Guterres told delegates.

A report issued by nature watchdogs said Monday that only 17.6 percent of land and inland waters, and 8.4 percent of the ocean and coastal areas are protected and conserved. And an update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature´s red list of threatened animals and plants found that more than one in three species of tree are at risk of extinction worldwide.

These include thousands that provide humans with timber, medicine, food and fuel. More than 46,000 plant and animal species out of the more than 166,000 assessed are now threatened with extinction.

Guterres said humans must make the switch from “plundering... to preserving” nature´s bounty. Continued destruction would only increase “hunger, displacement, and armed conflicts.” “Nature is life. And yet we are waging a war against it,” the UN secretary-general told COP16 delegates.