Strategic plans, targets and indicators

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (including the Aichi targets) is a useful flexible framework that is relevant to all biodiversity-related conventions.⁵² It derives from a recommendation of the September 2010 retreat, held in Switzerland, of executive

national Environmental Lawmaking and Diplomacy Review 2007, University of Joensuu – UNEP Course Series 7 (University of Joensuu, 2008) 127–141; and Stendahl’s paper in Part II of the present Review.

48 These being, for the CBD: Montreal, Canada and UNEP; for CITES: Geneva, Switzerland and UNEP;

for the CMS: Bonn, Germany and UNEP; for the ITPGRFA: Rome, Italy and the FAO; for Ramsar:

Gland, Switzerland and the IUCN; and for the WHC: Paris, France and UNESCO.

49 ‘The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets’, CBD Decision X/2 (2011). See, generally, CBD, ‘Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, Including Aichi Biodiversity Targets’, available at <https://www.cbd.int/sp/>. The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity is intended to run for the decade from 2011 to 2020, and to be the ‘overarching framework on biodiversity, not only for the biodiversity-related conventions, but for the entire United Nations system’; and to include the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Ibid. The Aichi Biodiversity Targets comprise 20 ‘targets’, grouped under five ‘Stra-tegic Goal’ headings:

• Strategic Goal A: Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodi-versity across government and society;

• Strategic Goal B: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use;

• Strategic Goal C: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity;

• Strategic Goal D: Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services; and

• Strategic Goal E: Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge man-agement and capacity building.

Ibid.

50 According to the CBD webpage, NBSAPs are the ‘principal instruments for implementing the Convention [on Biological Diversity] at the national level (Art. 6)’, with the Convention ‘requir[ing] countries to prepare a national biodiversity strategy (or equivalent instrument) and to ensure that this strategy is mainstreamed into the planning and activities of all those sectors whose activities can have an impact (positive and negative) on biodiversity’. See <http://www.cbd.int/nbsap/> (visited 18 June 2012).

51 See CITES, ‘Sixty-first meeting of the Standing Committee, Geneva, 15–19 August 2011 – Strategic matters: Cooperation with other organizations’, available at <http://www.cites.org/eng/com/sc/61/E61-15-01.pdf> (visited 11 January 2013), para. 7.

52 See supra note 49.

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heads of biodiversity conventions; and was actively supported by CITES, CMS, Ramsar and WHC at CBD-COP10.⁵³

Decision 15.10 of the CITES COP directs the Standing Committee⁵⁴ to ‘review the adopted post-2010 biodiversity targets and, if necessary, to make adjustments to the CITES Strategic Vision: 2008–2013,⁵⁵ as appropriate’.⁵⁶ The CITES Standing Com-mittee established a working group⁵⁷ to assist it with the implementation of this decision.⁵⁸ In addition, the Standing Committee Working Group on Special Report-ing Requirements⁵⁹ was mandated to develop draft guidance to Parties for reporting on the related targets and indicators.

Effective implementation of CITES will be indispensable for meeting a variety of the Aichi targets, including those which address the causes of biodiversity loss/main-streaming (Aichi targets 1, 2, 3 and 4);⁶⁰ direct pressures upon and sustainable use

53 A weblink to, and description of, the retreat can be found at CITES, ‘First High Level Retreat Among Secretariats of Biodiversity-Related Conventions’, 1 September 2010, available at <http://www.cites.org/

eng/news/SG/2010/sum_retreat100901.pdf>. The conclusions and recommendations emanating from the retreat included, in broad outline, that (a) a strategic plan 2011 to 2020 could serve as a useful frame-work for the biodiversity-related conventions; that (c) revised and updated NBSAPs should cover the full range of activities needed to implement all of the biodiversity-related conventions; that (d) capacity-building in support of the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity should be coordinated among the biodiversity-related conventions; and that (g) the participants agreed to work together in sup-port of the UN Decade for Biodiversity. Ibid. (visited 20 September 2012).

54 According to the CITES homepage, the Standing Committee ‘provides policy guidance to the Secretari-at concerning the implementSecretari-ation of the Convention and oversees the management of the SecretariSecretari-at’s budget. Beyond these key roles, it coordinates and oversees, where required, the work of other committees and working groups; carries out tasks given to it by the Conference of the Parties; and drafts resolutions for consideration by the Conference of the Parties’. Its membership is reviewed at each COP, and repre-sents each of the six major CITES geographical regions. CITES, ‘Standing Committee’, available at

<http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/sc.php> (visited 20 November 2012).

55 See supra note 24.

56 CITES decision 15.10 ‘Post-2010 biodiversity targets’ (2010).

57 See CITES, ‘Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, Doha (Qatar), 13–25 March 2010 – Strategic matters: Implementation of the Strategic Vision: 2008–2013’, available at <http://www.cites.

org/eng/cop/15/doc/E15-08.pdf> (visited 14 January 2013).

58 See CITES, ‘Sixteenth meeting of the CoP, Bangkok, 3–14 March 2013 – Strategic matters: CITES Strategic Vision’, available at <http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/16/doc/E-CoP16-12.pdf> (visited 26 De-cember 2012).

59 See CITES, ‘Sixty-second meeting of the Standing Committee Geneva (Switzerland), 23–27 July 2012 – Interpretation and implementation of the Convention, Compliance and enforcement, National reports, Special reporting requirements, available at <http://www.cites.org/eng/com/SC/62/E62-24-02.pdf> (vis-ited 14 January 2013).

60 Target 1 is that people will be ‘aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably’; target 2 is that ‘biodiversity values [will] have been integrated into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes and [will be] being incorpo-rated into national accounting, as appropriate, and reporting systems’; target 3 is that ‘[i]ncentives, includ-ing subsidies, harmful to biodiversity [will be] eliminated, phased out or reformed in order to minimize or avoid negative impacts, and positive incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity [will be] developed and applied, consistent and in harmony with the Convention and other relevant in-ternational obligations, taking into account national socio economic conditions’; and target 4 is that ‘[g]

overnments, business and stakeholders at all levels [will] have taken steps to achieve or have implemented plans for sustainable production and consumption and [will] have kept the impacts of use of natural re-sources well within safe ecological limits’. All of these targets, under Strategic Goal A, are to have been

143 Marceil Yeater of biodiversity (Aichi targets 6, 7 and 9);⁶¹ status of biodiversity through species (Aichi target 12);⁶² and enhanced implementation via participatory planning, knowl-edge management and capacity-building (Aichi targets 17, 18, 19 and 20).⁶³ Fur-thermore, national Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans are effective instruments to promote the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and the Aichi targets, taking into account synergies among the biodiversity-related conventions in a manner consistent with their respective mandates.

In 2011, the CITES Secretariat prepared a Draft Guide for Parties on contributing to the development, review, updating and revision of NBSAPs.⁶⁴ In addition, the CITES Secretariat has participated in regional NBSAP workshops for Southern Africa, West Asia and Pan-Europe.

Within the Convention on Biological Diversity, its COP-10 and COP-11 decisions related to NBSAPs, coupled with actions taken by other conventions and the funding available through the Global Environment Facility and bilateral or multilateral

do-achieved ‘by 2020, at the latest’. See CBD, ‘Aichi Biodiversity Targets’, available at <http://http://www.

cbd.int/sp/targets/>.

61 Target 6 is that ‘all fish and invertebrate stocks and aquatic plants [will be] managed and harvested sustain-ably, legally and applying ecosystem based approaches, so that overfishing is avoided, recovery plans and measures are in place for all depleted species, fisheries have no significant adverse impacts on threatened species and vulnerable ecosystems and the impacts of fisheries on stocks, species and ecosystems are within safe ecological limits’; target 7 is that ‘areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry [will be]

managed sustainably, ensuring conservation of biodiversity’; target 8 is that ‘pollution, including from excess nutrients, has been brought to levels that are not detrimental to ecosystem function and biodiver-sity’; and ‘target 9 is that ‘invasive alien species and pathways [will be] identified and prioritized, priority species [will be] controlled or eradicated, and measures [will be] in place to manage pathways to prevent their introduction and establishment’. The intention is that these targets, under Strategic Goal B, will have been ‘achieved by 2020’. Ibid.

62 Target 12, under Strategic Goal C, is that ‘by 2020 the extinction of known threatened species [will have]

been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, [will have] been im-proved and sustained’. Ibid.

63 Target 17 is that by 2015 ‘each Party [will have] developed, [will have] adopted as a policy instrument, and [will have] commenced implementing an effective, participatory and updated national biodiversity strategy and action plan’; Target 18 is that by 2020 the ‘traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and their customary use of biological resources, [will be] respected, subject to national legislation and relevant international obligations, and fully integrated and reflected in the implementation of the Convention with the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities, at all relevant levels’; Target 19 is that, ‘by 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its loss, [will be] improved, widely shared and transferred, and applied’; Target 20 is that, ‘by 2020, at the latest, the mobilization of financial resources for effectively implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 from all sources, and in ac-cordance with the consolidated and agreed process in the Strategy for Resource Mobilization, should [have] increase[d] substantially from the current levels[; with this target being] subject to changes contin-gent to resource needs assessments to be developed and reported by Parties’. Targets 17, 18, 19 and 20 are under Strategic Goal E. Ibid. See also CITES, ‘Sixty-Second meeting of the Standing Committee, Ge-neva, 23–27 July 2012 – Strategic matters: Implementation of the CITES Strategic Vision: 2008-2013’, available at <http://www.cites.org/eng/com/SC/62/E62-13.pdf> (visited 26 December 2012).

64 CITES Notification to the Parties No. 2011/026 (2011) ‘CITES Parties and National Biodiversity Strat-egies and Action Plans under the Convention on Biological Diversity – A Draft Guide’.

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nors, provide an unprecedented opportunity for more coherent and effective imple-mentation of each country’s biodiversity commitments ‘on-the-ground’.