A biodiversity agreement for land and water

Per Andreas Windingstad Larsen, Head of the Ocean Section at Norad

Sigurd Kihl, Senior Adviser in the Ocean Section at Norad

Also published in Panorama News 30 October 2024

Residents in the Oslo Fjord area have experienced the consequences of not looking after the oceans, with damaged ecosystems, reduced biodiversity and endangered fish populations.

These are also global problems, which have a significant impact on both food supply and the economy. It therefore gives hope that world leaders have gathered this week in Cali, Colombia to agree a new deal to solve shared problems relating to the crisis facing nature.

This is what’s at stake at COP 16

Colombia, with coastlines on both the Pacific and the Atlantic, has a rich coastal culture in which fishing is an important source of food and income. However, the ocean is also under threat here.

Climate change is leading to higher temperatures, lower oxygen contents and changes to ocean currents. Many of these changes are irreversible and will last for hundreds of years. The Cali agreement will be crucial to both biodiversity along the coast and the people who live there.

The biodiversity agreement is intended to ensure a sustainable future for land and ocean regions and one of the main objectives is to protect 30 per cent of the oceans and land regions on the planet by 2030.

Researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stress that the most important thing we can do now is strengthen the resilience of the oceans, which we can best achieve through the conservation of marine protected areas (MPA).

Today, only 8 per cent of the ocean is classified as marine protected areas and, in order to reach the goal of 30 per cent of oceans being protected, we need to add an area larger than France every year.

Marine protected areas can help preserve biodiversity while also increasing fish populations and improving food security. It is crucial to ensure that these areas are developed with a sustainable and evidence-based approach so that the local population can benefit through fishing and tourism.

Existing solutions

Cali is focusing on strengthening marine protected areas, especially in biodiverse areas such as the Coral Triangle and the Caribbean.

Fortunately, there are solutions available: In Costa Rica, a state-of-the-art satellite surveillance centre, partially funded through Norwegian aid, has now been commissioned. This represents a significant upgrade, which allows for improved monitoring of nearly 5.3 million hectares of ocean.

Another major threat facing the oceans is plastic littering. Plastic not only damages ecosystems but also weakens the essential services found in the oceans, such as oxygen, food and carbon storage.

Plastic litter is spread globally through air and ocean currents and pollutes the environment throughout the entire lifecycle of the plastic. At COP 16, initiatives to combat plastic littering are now being negotiated as part of the conservation strategies for biodiversity.

Big gains

There will be plenty of benefits to reap if we manage to preserve and develop ocean areas. Every day, billions of people look to the oceans for food and work alike. Marine fisheries and aquaculture provide more than 50 million direct jobs and three times as many indirect jobs.

In addition, over 500 million people rely on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods, with women making up almost half of all those involved in small-scale fishing.

Every dollar invested in this sector yields a five-fold return. The ocean also provides the foundations for the maritime industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the world’s trade and volumes are expected to triple by 2050.

We need to act in order for this to continue. Emissions and overfishing have immediate consequences for the oceans, which have bound us together for centuries. Marine aid projects are therefore necessary to secure our future.

By protecting and developing oceans and coastal areas in a sustainable manner, we can protect both the environment and the economic and social values they represent. The global biodiversity agreement under negotiation in Cali is called “Making Peace with Nature”. This is just as important for life under water as for life on land.