Statement by Inger Andersen

Director General

International Union for Conservation of Nature

Thirteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP13), Cancun, Mexico

5 December, 2016

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates.  Allow me first to express, on behalf of IUCN, my sincere thanks to the Government of Mexico for the gracious hospitality with which we have been received here in beautiful Cancun, Mexico. Allow me also to express our thanks to Braulio de Souza Dias for his leadership as well as to express a warm welcome to Cristiana Pasca Palmer.

The 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets articulate clearly what needs to be done to shore up the life support systems of this planet and IUCN salutes the many positive efforts to achieve them.  However, a great deal of progress is still needed.

Despite the fundamental importance of biodiversity, it continues to be lost. With less than four years left, IUCN stresses the critical need to urgently scale up efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets by 2020.

IUCN also stresses that the implementation of the Aichi Targets is essential for the accomplishment of the SDGs.  Nthe accomplishment of the SDGs depends on the achievement of the Aichi Targets.

We welcome the IUCN reiterates that such mainstreaming is a pre-condition for sustainable development aIUCN urges Parties to step up efforts to mainstream biodiversity through the implementation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) by all relevant stakeholders.  

In this context, we strongly endorse the work and efforts of youth, indigenous people and civil society organizations as well as the critical role of women in biodiversity conservation.

The theme of the 2016 IUCN’s World Conservation Congress in September in Hawai’i - Planet at the Crossroads - reflects the serious choices that the world needs to make to reverse environmental declines and secure a healthy and liveable planet. IUCN brings forward to Cancun the Hawai’i commitments - an inspirational declaration which addresses critical issues for conservation for the coming decades. Allow me to mention a few highlights: First, the imperative of better understanding of the conservation – agriculture intersect.  Secondly, the imperative of ocean conservation. Third, the nexus between nature and culture. Fourth, the power of youth in conservation leadership. And fifth and more broadly more broadly, the threats to biodiversity from habitat loss, climate change, invasive alien species, unsustainable exploitation, and pollution.

We are pressed for time. Achievement of the Aichi Targets We know conservation does work. We now urge that this gathering becomes a clarion call for the imperative to scale up ambition and commitment and put in place more concrete actions to achieve all targets across all Strategic Goals.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.