Biodiversity and resilient ecosystems are essential to sustainable development, especially when it comes to issues such as food and nutrition security, access to health and water, good governance and peacebuilding.
Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems services is crucial to reduce poverty as well as the risks of natural disasters. We therefore act at all levels to help fight unsustainable practices that are threatening biodiversity and ecosystems around the world.
Our action in that field is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 15 and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
The EU Biodiversity Strategy
The 2030 Biodiversity Strategy is a comprehensive, systemic and ambitious long-term plan for protecting nature and reversing the degradation of ecosystems. It is a key pillar of the European Green Deal and of EU leadership on international action for global public goods and the Sustainable Development Goals.
It aims to put Europe's biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030 with benefits for people, the climate and the planet. It is also the proposal for the EU contribution to the upcoming international negotiations on the global post-2020 biodiversity framework.
In the post-COVID context, the Biodiversity Strategy aims to build our societies’ resilience to future threats such as climate change impacts, forest fires, food insecurity or disease outbreaks, including by protecting wildlife and fighting illegal wildlife trade.
EU Biodiversity for Life
Between 2007 and 2015, the EU invested €1.67 billion of development funds in biodiversity-related projects.
One of these is the EU ‘Biodiversity for Life’ (B4Life) initiative, launched in 2014, which fully integrates biodiversity and ecosystem conservation with socioeconomic development and poverty eradication, through an innovative cross-cutting approach. B4Life operates in 3 priority areas
- good governance for a sustainable management of natural resources
- ecosystem conservation for food security and sustainable rural development
- ecosystem-based solutions towards a green economy
B4Life also specifically addresses the wildlife crises linked to increasing illegal trafficking.
Our financial instruments
EU total funding for biodiversity through international development cooperation reached €1.67 billion in the decade up to 2016, with a boost happening in 2012 with the Hyderabad commitment.
For the funding period 2014-2020, we have earmarked up to €1 billion for biodiversity and ecosystems, including wildlife conservation. The biodiversity component of development projects in other sectors, like agriculture and food, security, energy etc. increases that figure.
We fund biodiversity-related development cooperation activities mainly via 2 types of financial instruments
- our geographical instruments, such as the European Development Fund (EDF), the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) or the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) help us implement our biodiversity strategy at national and regional level
- our thematic programme ‘Global Public Goods and Challenges’ (GPGC), which addresses issues that are not priorities under geographical instruments or issues common to groups of countries not belonging to a single region
Protected areas
The largest share of our investments in biodiversity is used to support protected areas. These funds are provided through bilateral cooperation with our partner countries our through grants to international and local NGOs managing protected areas.
For the past 30 years, we have focused on enabling our partner countries to create, manage and maintain key protected areas because well-managed protected areas bring many benefits, such as
- reduced rates of habitat loss and maintained levels of species populations
- preservation of key ecosystem services and fostering of sustainable livelihoods
- sustainable economic benefits through tourism and innovative SMEs
- improved security for communities living in conflict-affected areas
- wildlife protection in fragile countries affected by illegal trafficking
- countering growing pressures on natural resources
- better water retention and access to water in dry areas
- increased pool of plants and resources for potentially new medicines
- mitigation effects on climate change and consequently less risks of natural disasters
As protected areas in developing countries require sustained political commitment and financial support, public-private partnerships (the PPP model) have proven successful in countries where government capacities are limited. PPP agreements grant private partners a stronger and clearer mandate as well as greater decisional independence and financial flexibility to manage protected areas. Private partners also act as a lever for raising other sources of funding.
