{"id":666535,"date":"2026-10-27T05:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T05:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/666535\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T05:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T05:34:10","slug":"ireland-urges-greater-efforts-to-save-nature-at-global-biodiversity-summit-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/666535\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland urges greater efforts to save nature at global biodiversity summit \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish wildlife champions are among thousands of politicians, officials, academics, campaigners, conservationists, industrialists and finance chiefs attending the Global Biodiversity Summit \u2013 or Cop17 \u2013 in Yerevan, Armenia<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Their task at the global summit, which started on October 19th and runs until next Friday, is to examine how a commitment made four years ago to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 is playing out. Following on from this, they will aim to put in place supports to ensure it can be realised. <\/p>\n

That commitment came 30 years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro<\/a> produced the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Under the convention, the world undertook to protect nature and use its resources sustainably and fairly. <\/p>\n

In the three decades that followed, those promises were broken repeatedly, universally and disastrously. <\/p>\n

So what has happened since 2022 when a renewed effort was pledged?<\/p>\n

A World Wildlife Fund report published just before Yerevan put the loss of wildlife populations at 73 per cent in 50 years and said the \u201cvast decline in nature at a global scale\u201d was continuing. <\/p>\n

The secretariat of the CBD said similar in their pre-summit report.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the critical elements of progress, including finance, capacity, co-operation and data are still missing in action,\u201d UN<\/a> secretary-general Antonio Guterres<\/a> remarked. <\/p>\n

\u201cNature won\u2019t thrive on good intentions,\u201d he warned. <\/p>\n

Ireland can\u2019t hide from those remarks. An assessment last year showed 90 per cent of protected habitats \u2013 and the plants and animals dependent on them \u2013 were unhealthy. <\/p>\n

But the Irish government \u2013 when the Green Party was part of it \u2013 led the charge in a tough battle for the European Parliament to pass the landmark Nature Restoration Law in 2024, establishing aims that mirror the global 2022 agreement. <\/p>\n

Ireland then became the first member state to submit its mandatory national Nature Restoration Plan to the EU<\/a>. <\/p>\n

So can Ireland and the EU hold their heads high at the Yerevan negotiations? <\/p>\n

Fintan Kelly of the Irish Environmental Network is there with representatives of Fair Seas, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group<\/a>, BirdWatch Ireland<\/a>, the Irish Wildlife Trust and Streamscapes. He acknowledges the good intentions but holds the same fears as Guterres. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU will arrive to the table and say, \u2018look, we\u2019ve got this world-leading law, we\u2019re in the process of implementing it, member states have their national plans so trust us, we\u2019re doing this\u2019. But we\u2019re there to point out this isn\u2019t the full picture,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Kelly cites the ending of the EU\u2019s LIFE projects, which have been critical for localised nature restoration. He also criticises the lack of funding for environmental protection in the new Common Agricultural Policy package and the proposed weakening of environmental assessment requirements in the Birds and Habitats Directives. <\/p>\n

The next seven-year EU budget currently under negotiation also proposes cuts in funding for the environment and there is no EU-wide, or Irish, fund to support action under the Nature Restoration Law yet. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to set up meetings with MEPs and point out we\u2019re really concerned about the direction of travel,\u201d Kelly said of the campaigning opportunities the Irish organisations hope to grab while in Yerevan. <\/p>\n

Jane Stout, professor of ecology at Trinity College Dublin, has just returned from Yerevan and describes the first week of negotiations as \u201ca mixed bag\u201d of positivity and concern. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe positivity is around the fact that all the governments are there and the reach of the CBD is expanding,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen it was first ratified back in 1992, for example, private businesses were not even mentioned and they were seen very much as the problem. Now they\u2019re seen as part of the solution, so there were lots of sessions on business and biodiversity<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one side, that\u2019s positive and hopeful because it\u2019s bringing more people into the conversation. On the other side, it\u2019s a reflection of the fact that they\u2019re starting to worry that this isn\u2019t just an environmental problem.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stout is referring to the belated realisation that once water becomes too polluted to use and soils too depleted to grow anything, once pollinators disappear and oceans stop supporting marine life, almost every industry loses its raw materials and the vital services that nature provides. <\/p>\n

Wrangling finance out of industry and the richer countries to support a turnaround in nature\u2019s fortunes is a key focus of the summit. <\/p>\n

Minister for Nature Christopher O\u2019Sullivan is in Yerevan and acknowledges Ireland has yet to put its own money where its good intentions lie. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have been working with colleagues across Government to establish a dedicated nature restoration fund for a number of months,\u201d he said, adding he hoped to \u201cbe in a position to share more information soon\u201d. <\/p>\n

On the wider issues, he said his approach to the talks would be to emphasise what is at stake. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not on track to meet our 2030 targets, [which is] putting people, the economy and the wider environment \u2013 as well as wildlife and habitats \u2013 at risk of significant consequences,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re saying, as both the EU and as Ireland, is that we can\u2019t give up. We need to do more. We need to work together to change this awful trajectory and protect the diversity of life on this amazing planet.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish wildlife champions are among thousands of politicians, officials, academics, campaigners, conservationists, industrialists and finance chiefs attending the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[68227,851,134464,246,61,60,82,23242],"class_list":["post-666535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-biodiversity","tag-birdwatch-ireland","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-united-nations-un"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}