The new State of Nature report pools data and expertise from more than 50 nature conservation and other research organisations to give a cutting edge overview of the state of nature in the UK and in its seas, Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

It shows the UK’s wildlife to be under considerable pressure with the negative pressures – primarily agriculture, climate change and a 32% reduction in funding for conservation – significantly outweighing the positive resulting in a net loss of nature.

This is a trend identified three years ago (2013) when the first State of Nature report was published (and reported on by the Ecologist at that time) with this new report concluding that current conservation efforts to reverse the decline are insufficient to put nature ‘back where it belongs.’

And writing in his foreword to the new report, Sir David Attenborough agrees:

“The news is mixed. Escalating pressures, such as climate change
 and modern land management, mean that we continue to lose the precious wildlife that enriches our lives and is essential to the health and wellbeing of those who live in the UK, and also in its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories. Our wonderful nature is in serious trouble and it needs our help as never before.”

UK ‘leading ther world’ in destruction of nature

Here are some of the key findings:

• Between 1970 and 2013, 56% of species declined, with 40% showing strong or moderate declines. 44% of species increased, with 29% showing strong or moderate increases. Between 2002 and 2013, 53% of species declined and 47% increased. These measures were based on quantitative trends for almost 4,000 terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK.

• Of the nearly 8,000 species assessed using modern Red List criteria, 15% are threatened with extinction from Great Britain.

• An index of species’ status, based on abundance and occupancy data, has fallen by 16% since 1970. Between 2002 and 2013, the index fell by 3%. This is based on data for 2,501 terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK.
• An index describing the population trends of species of special conservation concern in the UK has fallen by 67% since 1970, and by 12% over the last decade. This is based on trend information for 213 priority species.
• A new measure that assesses how intact a country’s biodiversity is, suggests that the UK has lost significantly more nature over the long term than the global average. The index suggests that we are amongst the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
• The loss of nature in the UK continues. Although many short-term trends suggest improvement, there was no statistical difference between our long and short-term measures of species’ change, and no change in the proportion of species threatened with extinction.
• Many factors have resulted in changes to the UK’s wildlife over recent decades, 
but policy-driven agricultural change was by far the most significant driver of declines. Climate change has had a significant impact too, although its impact has been mixed, with both beneficial and detrimental effects on species. Nevertheless, we know that climate change is one of the greatest long-term threats to nature globally.
• Well-planned conservation projects can turn around the fortunes of wildlife. 
This report gives examples of how governments, non-governmental organisations, businesses, communities and individuals have worked together to bring nature back.
• We have a moral obligation to save nature and this is a view shared by the millions of supporters of conservation organisations across the UK. Not only that, we must save nature for our own sake, as it provides us with essential and irreplaceable benefits that support our welfare and livelihoods.
• We are fortunate that the UK has thousands of dedicated and expert volunteers recording wildlife. It is largely thanks to their efforts, and the role of the organisations supporting them, that we are able to chart how our nature is faring.
• The UK’s Overseas Territories (OTs) are of great importance for wildlife globally; 32,000 native species have been recorded in the OTs, of which 1,500 occur nowhere else in the world. An estimated 70,000 species may remain undiscovered in the OTs.


A myriad of exciting and innovative conservation projects – but we need more!


The UK has commitments to meet international environmental goals, such as those 
in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

However, the findings of this report suggest that we are not on course to meet the Aichi 2020 targets, and that much more action needs to be taken towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development if we are to meet the Sustainable Development Goal.

Sir David Attenborough is, of course, not the nation’s favourite conservationist for no reason – he had dedicated his career to inspiring the rest of us to care about what happens to wildlife and the world’s natural resources for decades.

And so in his conclusion he raises the spectre of a more hopeful future stating: “The ‘State of Nature’ 2016 report gives us cause for hope too. The rallying call issued in 2013 has been met with 
a myriad of exciting and innovative conservation projects.

“Landscapes are being restored, special places defended, and struggling species are being saved and brought back. Such successes demonstrate that if conservationists, governments, businesses and individuals all pull together, we can provide a brighter future for nature and for people.” 

 

---




Susan Clark edits The Ecologist.

Read the full State of Nature report.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘State of Nature’: a labour of love by Britain’s conservation heroes‘ by Dr Mark Eaton, Principal Conservation scientist with the RSPB and State of Nature co-author.

 

The State of Nature report, released today – whilst tells one cheering tale: of many successes in special places saved, new habitats created, and species dragged back from the brink of extinction.

But these efforts will have to be redoubled if we are to address the year-on-year loss we can chart back over nearly 50 years and – we suspect – has been proceeding unmeasured for decades prior to this.

Along with the other 48 authors of this report, I take some satisfaction in seeing the fruit of our long labours, and its contribution to the debate about the nation’s wildlife and what needs to be done.

Furthermore, the publication stands as an achievement for the 50-plus partners in the UK report, with further organisations contributing to the national-level reports for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

These partners span the spectrum from the giants of UK conservation with membership measuring in the millions, through to the volunteer-run, back bedroom-based recording societies, and in-between encompasses a range of focussed conservation NGOs and outstanding centres of research.

We all share a common ground of dedication, expertise and determination, and it is surely sign of a healthy and mature conservation movement that we can come together, standing shoulder to shoulder.

A vast Peoples’ Movement of volunteer naturalists

But more than everything, this report should stand as a tribute to the many of thousands of volunteers who collect the data upon which it is based. The UK has a long and proud history of recording its natural history and most of that recording has been done by amateurs.

Of course, back in the days of Gilbert White there was no such thing as a professional naturalist, but even though recent decades have seen the increasing emergence of the professional – those like me, and my State of Nature co-authors – we are still dependent on the amateurs, although tend to avoid that word given its inappropriate connotations of inexperience.

The volunteers we rely on are dedicated, experienced, expert, and in many cases easily the match for us professionals. They give up time, bear the financial costs, brave the elements, walk many miles, ignore the blisters and the midge-bites.

The Government’s statistics estimate that these volunteers put as many as seven-and-a-half million hours into recording wildlife every year, and the value of the volunteer contribution to structured monitoring schemes is in excess of £8 million per annum, whilst that in wider wildlife recording is likely an eight-figure sum.

Whilst the ‘Big Society’ was a political buzz phrase with a shelf-life little longer than an electoral campaign, this is just that – volunteers contributing for the greater good, providing the evidence base upon which successful conservation must be based.

Of course, I need to highlight the vital role of us professionals in this: without the State of Nature partner organisations, who run monitoring and recording schemes, all of this volunteer potential would be untapped. Training, scheme design, data collection, analysis and reporting as easily digestible results to inform and guide conservation effort – that’s what we do, and of course, this needs funding.

It costs about £2.5 million to run the schemes that liberate that £8 million-worth of fieldwork effort – a bargain. Of that, the government contributes around half. In these cash-strapped and uncertain times, we must fight tooth and nail to retain that government funding, and ensure that they understand the terrific value for money this provides.

The National Biodiversity Network – the sophisticated online bucket into which biological records are poured at an ever-increasing rate – accrues some 4.5 million records every year.

Allied to a suite of analytical methods being developed by another State of Nature partner, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, means we are getting ever-better at harnessing the volunteer effort. In the first State of Nature report we compiled trends in 3,148 species; this year we have trends for 3,816, and I confidently predict an even greater leap by the time of the third report in 2019.

Can we wean our youngsters off Pokemon-Go and onto wildlife?

So we should salute these volunteers, and be thankful that we have them. But we worry there won’t be enough of them in the next generation.

On the side of meetings, we share nervous anecdotes about the volunteer-base – the sad losses as former stalwarts hang up their binoculars, hand-lenses and nets, and the apparent absence of a younger generation.

We fret about the competition for the attention of the recorders of the future and how the subtle attractions of natural history may be overwhelmed by the lure of computers, Pokémon-Go, nightclubs. Maybe this was always the case – perhaps the naturalists of the 1920’s worried that a new generation of ornithologists and entomologists would be waylaid by the thrills of the Charleston and Lindy Hop?  

Maybe I should be more optimistic, marvelling at the new opportunities – online recording, identification apps, the perhaps overstated potential for sampling ‘environmental DNA’ by which a teaspoon of puddle-water will reveal every species that has hopped, crawled or swum through it – and hoping that these will attract in new blood, the next generation of data gatherers.

Certainly a plethora of websites and apps has nurtured recording communities, and it has never been so easy to collect and contribute data. One of the new State of Nature report’s case studies reveals how scientists at the British Trust for Ornithology have recruited over 800 bat surveyors, within Norfolk alone, by developing a lending library of automatic bat detectors.

Our smartphones enable us to photograph an unknown critter, share the picture with an online community, and receive an identification within minutes. Another couple of minutes later and the sighting can be logged into the appropriate database, ready to feed into a future State of Nature report.

Do the opportunities provided by this technology allow us to go toe-to-toe with the competing attractions of modern life? It’s been calculated that six day’s-worth of sightings by Pokémon-Go players would equal all the wildlife observations made globally in the last 400 years.

Whilst we may never match that, we must rise to the challenge of making wildlife recording interesting, accessible and rewarding for younger generations; volunteers are the life-blood of wildlife recording, and indeed conservation more widely, and we neglect them at our peril. 

Dr Mark Eaton is the RSPB Principal Conservation Scientist.

Read the full State of Nature report.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘State of Nature 2016 report shows continued loss of Britain’s biodiversity‘.

The new State of Nature report pools data and expertise from more than 50 nature conservation and other research organisations to give a cutting edge overview of the state of nature in the UK and in its seas, Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

It shows the UK’s wildlife to be under considerable pressure with the negative pressures – primarily agriculture, climate change and a 32% reduction in funding for conservation – significantly outweighing the positive resulting in a net loss of nature.

This is a trend identified three years ago (2013) when the first State of Nature report was published (and reported on by the Ecologist at that time) with this new report concluding that current conservation efforts to reverse the decline are insufficient to put nature ‘back where it belongs.’

And writing in his foreword to the new report, Sir David Attenborough agrees:

“The news is mixed. Escalating pressures, such as climate change
 and modern land management, mean that we continue to lose the precious wildlife that enriches our lives and is essential to the health and wellbeing of those who live in the UK, and also in its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories. Our wonderful nature is in serious trouble and it needs our help as never before.”

UK ‘leading ther world’ in destruction of nature

Here are some of the key findings:

• Between 1970 and 2013, 56% of species declined, with 40% showing strong or moderate declines. 44% of species increased, with 29% showing strong or moderate increases. Between 2002 and 2013, 53% of species declined and 47% increased. These measures were based on quantitative trends for almost 4,000 terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK.

• Of the nearly 8,000 species assessed using modern Red List criteria, 15% are threatened with extinction from Great Britain.

• An index of species’ status, based on abundance and occupancy data, has fallen by 16% since 1970. Between 2002 and 2013, the index fell by 3%. This is based on data for 2,501 terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK.
• An index describing the population trends of species of special conservation concern in the UK has fallen by 67% since 1970, and by 12% over the last decade. This is based on trend information for 213 priority species.
• A new measure that assesses how intact a country’s biodiversity is, suggests that the UK has lost significantly more nature over the long term than the global average. The index suggests that we are amongst the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
• The loss of nature in the UK continues. Although many short-term trends suggest improvement, there was no statistical difference between our long and short-term measures of species’ change, and no change in the proportion of species threatened with extinction.
• Many factors have resulted in changes to the UK’s wildlife over recent decades, 
but policy-driven agricultural change was by far the most significant driver of declines. Climate change has had a significant impact too, although its impact has been mixed, with both beneficial and detrimental effects on species. Nevertheless, we know that climate change is one of the greatest long-term threats to nature globally.
• Well-planned conservation projects can turn around the fortunes of wildlife. 
This report gives examples of how governments, non-governmental organisations, businesses, communities and individuals have worked together to bring nature back.
• We have a moral obligation to save nature and this is a view shared by the millions of supporters of conservation organisations across the UK. Not only that, we must save nature for our own sake, as it provides us with essential and irreplaceable benefits that support our welfare and livelihoods.
• We are fortunate that the UK has thousands of dedicated and expert volunteers recording wildlife. It is largely thanks to their efforts, and the role of the organisations supporting them, that we are able to chart how our nature is faring.
• The UK’s Overseas Territories (OTs) are of great importance for wildlife globally; 32,000 native species have been recorded in the OTs, of which 1,500 occur nowhere else in the world. An estimated 70,000 species may remain undiscovered in the OTs.


A myriad of exciting and innovative conservation projects – but we need more!


The UK has commitments to meet international environmental goals, such as those 
in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

However, the findings of this report suggest that we are not on course to meet the Aichi 2020 targets, and that much more action needs to be taken towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development if we are to meet the Sustainable Development Goal.

Sir David Attenborough is, of course, not the nation’s favourite conservationist for no reason – he had dedicated his career to inspiring the rest of us to care about what happens to wildlife and the world’s natural resources for decades.

And so in his conclusion he raises the spectre of a more hopeful future stating: “The ‘State of Nature’ 2016 report gives us cause for hope too. The rallying call issued in 2013 has been met with 
a myriad of exciting and innovative conservation projects.

“Landscapes are being restored, special places defended, and struggling species are being saved and brought back. Such successes demonstrate that if conservationists, governments, businesses and individuals all pull together, we can provide a brighter future for nature and for people.” 

 

---




Susan Clark edits The Ecologist.

Read the full State of Nature report.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘State of Nature’: a labour of love by Britain’s conservation heroes‘ by Dr Mark Eaton, Principal Conservation scientist with the RSPB and State of Nature co-author.

 

The State of Nature report, released today – whilst tells one cheering tale: of many successes in special places saved, new habitats created, and species dragged back from the brink of extinction.

But these efforts will have to be redoubled if we are to address the year-on-year loss we can chart back over nearly 50 years and – we suspect – has been proceeding unmeasured for decades prior to this.

Along with the other 48 authors of this report, I take some satisfaction in seeing the fruit of our long labours, and its contribution to the debate about the nation’s wildlife and what needs to be done.

Furthermore, the publication stands as an achievement for the 50-plus partners in the UK report, with further organisations contributing to the national-level reports for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

These partners span the spectrum from the giants of UK conservation with membership measuring in the millions, through to the volunteer-run, back bedroom-based recording societies, and in-between encompasses a range of focussed conservation NGOs and outstanding centres of research.

We all share a common ground of dedication, expertise and determination, and it is surely sign of a healthy and mature conservation movement that we can come together, standing shoulder to shoulder.

A vast Peoples’ Movement of volunteer naturalists

But more than everything, this report should stand as a tribute to the many of thousands of volunteers who collect the data upon which it is based. The UK has a long and proud history of recording its natural history and most of that recording has been done by amateurs.

Of course, back in the days of Gilbert White there was no such thing as a professional naturalist, but even though recent decades have seen the increasing emergence of the professional – those like me, and my State of Nature co-authors – we are still dependent on the amateurs, although tend to avoid that word given its inappropriate connotations of inexperience.

The volunteers we rely on are dedicated, experienced, expert, and in many cases easily the match for us professionals. They give up time, bear the financial costs, brave the elements, walk many miles, ignore the blisters and the midge-bites.

The Government’s statistics estimate that these volunteers put as many as seven-and-a-half million hours into recording wildlife every year, and the value of the volunteer contribution to structured monitoring schemes is in excess of £8 million per annum, whilst that in wider wildlife recording is likely an eight-figure sum.

Whilst the ‘Big Society’ was a political buzz phrase with a shelf-life little longer than an electoral campaign, this is just that – volunteers contributing for the greater good, providing the evidence base upon which successful conservation must be based.

Of course, I need to highlight the vital role of us professionals in this: without the State of Nature partner organisations, who run monitoring and recording schemes, all of this volunteer potential would be untapped. Training, scheme design, data collection, analysis and reporting as easily digestible results to inform and guide conservation effort – that’s what we do, and of course, this needs funding.

It costs about £2.5 million to run the schemes that liberate that £8 million-worth of fieldwork effort – a bargain. Of that, the government contributes around half. In these cash-strapped and uncertain times, we must fight tooth and nail to retain that government funding, and ensure that they understand the terrific value for money this provides.

The National Biodiversity Network – the sophisticated online bucket into which biological records are poured at an ever-increasing rate – accrues some 4.5 million records every year.

Allied to a suite of analytical methods being developed by another State of Nature partner, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, means we are getting ever-better at harnessing the volunteer effort. In the first State of Nature report we compiled trends in 3,148 species; this year we have trends for 3,816, and I confidently predict an even greater leap by the time of the third report in 2019.

Can we wean our youngsters off Pokemon-Go and onto wildlife?

So we should salute these volunteers, and be thankful that we have them. But we worry there won’t be enough of them in the next generation.

On the side of meetings, we share nervous anecdotes about the volunteer-base – the sad losses as former stalwarts hang up their binoculars, hand-lenses and nets, and the apparent absence of a younger generation.

We fret about the competition for the attention of the recorders of the future and how the subtle attractions of natural history may be overwhelmed by the lure of computers, Pokémon-Go, nightclubs. Maybe this was always the case – perhaps the naturalists of the 1920’s worried that a new generation of ornithologists and entomologists would be waylaid by the thrills of the Charleston and Lindy Hop?  

Maybe I should be more optimistic, marvelling at the new opportunities – online recording, identification apps, the perhaps overstated potential for sampling ‘environmental DNA’ by which a teaspoon of puddle-water will reveal every species that has hopped, crawled or swum through it – and hoping that these will attract in new blood, the next generation of data gatherers.

Certainly a plethora of websites and apps has nurtured recording communities, and it has never been so easy to collect and contribute data. One of the new State of Nature report’s case studies reveals how scientists at the British Trust for Ornithology have recruited over 800 bat surveyors, within Norfolk alone, by developing a lending library of automatic bat detectors.

Our smartphones enable us to photograph an unknown critter, share the picture with an online community, and receive an identification within minutes. Another couple of minutes later and the sighting can be logged into the appropriate database, ready to feed into a future State of Nature report.

Do the opportunities provided by this technology allow us to go toe-to-toe with the competing attractions of modern life? It’s been calculated that six day’s-worth of sightings by Pokémon-Go players would equal all the wildlife observations made globally in the last 400 years.

Whilst we may never match that, we must rise to the challenge of making wildlife recording interesting, accessible and rewarding for younger generations; volunteers are the life-blood of wildlife recording, and indeed conservation more widely, and we neglect them at our peril. 

Dr Mark Eaton is the RSPB Principal Conservation Scientist.

Read the full State of Nature report.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘State of Nature 2016 report shows continued loss of Britain’s biodiversity‘.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has passed a motion declaring that all protected areas and the sacred natural sites of indigenous peoples should be ‘No-Go Areas’ for destructive industrial activities like mining, dam-building and logging.

The motion was passed as Motion 26 during last week’s World Conservation Congress, a gathering that occurs every four years and helps to set the world’s conservation agenda.

Motion 26 urges governments to “respect all categories of IUCN protected areas as No-Go Areas for environmentally damaging industrial-scale activities and infrastructure development.” It also calls on businesses to “withdraw from exploration or activities in these areas, and not to conduct future activities in protected areas.”

The successful passage of Motion 26 will come as welcome news to the hundreds of indigenous nations struggling to protect their lands at a time when sacred sites and protected areas of all types are under threat from extractive industries.

The motion’s success owes much to an indigenous delegation from the Uʻwa People of Colombia, the Kichwa of Sarayaku, Ecuador, Winnemem Wintu, US, Gabbra herdsmen, Kenya and others from Benin, Papua New Guinea, Russia and Mongolia, who were present at the conference in Hawai’i.

As protests over the desecration of the Standing Rock Sioux’s sacred lands intensified last week, these custodians gathered in Honolulu to raise critical awareness of the profound importance of sacred sites for indigenous peoples and efforts to protect embattled ecosystems worldwide.

‘We take care of nature, nature takes care of us’

In a statement entitled Statement of Indigenous Kahu`āina Guardians of Sacred Lands released during the congress, the group of indigenous custodians supporting Motion 26 affirm their unified understanding of sacred sites.

They describe these sites as natural places, such as mountains and springs, which are “nodal points, responsible for the harmonious and healthy functioning of Mother Earth.”

These sacred sites are “essential to sustaining the biodiversity and health of the lands, oceans, waters and air of our planet and the well-being of humanity”, say the custodians, who are responsible for the day-to-day care of their people’s sacred places.

In their statement the custodians go beyond the IUCN definition of sacred natural sites as “areas of land or water having special spiritual significance to peoples and communities.”

They argue that the cultural and physical survival of indigenous peoples, and therefore the realisation of their rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is contingent on the continued existence and health of sacred natural sites.

“Sacred lands enable the next generations to connect, identify with and carry on our ancestral cultures, traditions, ceremonies and spirituality”, say the custodians.

In turn, according to UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights Vicki Tauli Corpuz, recognising the rights of indigenous peoples and upholding the health of their cultures is key for ensuring better protection for nature worldwide.

“Conservation organisations … often fail to take into account why the forests are still standing. Often it is the indigenous people who have lived there since time immemorial who protected and preserved these lands … indigenous people and local communities are the best proven stewards of their traditional lands and resources, and respecting their rights is critical amid the climate crisis”, says Corpuz.

Sacred sites under threat

The passage of Motion 26 into IUCN policy comes at a crucial moment. Around the planet sacred sites and other protected areas are under serious threat as demand for commodities such as timber, fossil fuels and palm oil rises.

Earlier this year, a WWF report revealed that over half of all natural World Heritage Sites (114 of 229), supposedly the most zealously protected areas in the world, are under threat from mining and other destructive industrial activities.

This pattern is replicated in the lands and sacred sites of indigenous peoples, which are increasingly seen as areas of untapped economic potential by mining, logging and dam building companies, amongst others.

At a session during the congress, Aura Tegria, a member of the U’wa Tribe from Colombia, described how threats to Mount Zizuma, a sacred site for the U’wa, are affecting her people.

“The presence of energy mining projects within U’wa territory accelerate climate change and violate our (the U’wa’s) mandate to protect, take care of and safeguard our Mother Earth, carrying us toward a physical and cultural extermination”, says Tegria.

Each of the other indigenous custodians present at the congress had a similar story to tell. In their statement they describe “industrial activities in all their manifestations – mining, oil and gas extraction, dams, logging, corporate agricultural expansion, industrial-scale wind and solar power, and other extractive practices” as responsible for “multi-generational psychological and emotional trauma for indigenous communities.”

Recent research by environmental think tank, Global Witness, has revealed that indigenous communities also suffer disproportionate levels of physical violence. The group found that in 2015, of 185-recorded killings of environmental defenders, 40% of the victims were indigenous.

The custodian’s statement proposes Motion 26 as a key policy to help stem and turn back this tide of violence. Linking “the universal value of World Heritage Sites, protected areas, sacred natural sites and conserved territories” and calling for all to be protected as No Go Areas, Motion 26 seeks to prevent the multiple forms of violence that affect indigenous peoples as they encounter extractive industries worldwide.

A ‘new paradigm’ finally emerging?

In 2003, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Durban, the world’s largest conservation organisations pledged to respect the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands as part of a ‘new paradigm’ for conservation.

The successful passage of Motion 26 and the creation of a new category of membership for indigenous peoples’ organisations within IUCN, are strides in the rights direction, says Fiona Wilton of The Gaia Foundation, one of a group of civil society organisations pushing for Motion 26.

“Indigenous peoples have historically suffered great injustices at the hands of conservation groups, as well as the extractive industries. Motion 26 is a good indication that the world’s biggest conservation players are waking up to the fact that recognising indigenous peoples rights, supporting their lived forms of conservation and helping them protect their lands from destructive industries through policies like Motion 26, is the best way to protect life on Earth.”

Though Motion 26 is not legally binding on governments or businesses, supporters say that it can be an effective practical tool for indigenous and local community activists struggling to protect sacred natural sites.

“By adopting this measure the IUCN has blown wind into the sails of indigenous campaigns for territorial defense and offered civil society a tool to help strengthen national level protected area norms to include sacred natural sites”, says Amazon Watch’s Andrew Miller.

Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu of northern California and one of the custodians present in Hawai’i, is in agreement, but says there is still much to be done.

“The challenge now is to identify a mechanism that will successfully make these sacred places permanent No-Go Areas – where indigenous knowledge and rights are respected. We still need enforceable laws to save our sacred sites”, says Sisk.

Hal Rhoades is Communications and Advocacy Officer at the Gaia Foundation. He also writes for indigenous news journal Intercontinental Cry.

Motion 26 was officially proposed by IUCN member organisations including The WILD Foundation (USA), Nature Tropicale (Benin), Asociación para la Conservación, Investigación de la Biodiversidad y el Desarrollo Sostenible (Bolivia), Centre for Sustainable Development (Iran), The Christensen Fund (USA), Wilderness Foundation (South Africa) and Zoological Society of London (UK). The motion was supported by The Gaia Foundation, Sacred Land Film Project, ICCA-Consortium, Women’s Earth and Climate Network, Borneo Project and Amazon Watch. The IUCN Council also supported the motion. Read the full text of Motion 26.

Read the full Statement of Indigenous Kahu`āina Guardians of Sacred Lands.

Imagine a world in which all of the main functions of society are run for-profit by private companies.

Schools are run by multinationals. Private security firms have replaced police forces. And most big infrastructure lies in the hands of a tiny plutocratic elite.

Justice, such as it is, is meted out by shady corporate tribunals only accessible to the rich, who can easily escape the reach of limited national judicial systems.

The poor, on the other hand, have almost no recourse against the mighty will of the remote corporate elite as they are chased off their land and forced into further penury.

This sounds like a piece of dystopian science fiction. But it’s not. It’s very close to the reality in which we live. The power of corporations has reached a level never before seen in human history, often dwarfing the power of states.

Today, of the 100 wealthiest economic entities in the world, 69 are now corporations and only 31 countries. This is up from 63 to 37 a year ago. At this rate, within a generation we will be living in a world entirely dominated by giant corporations.

As multinationals increasingly dominate areas traditionally considered the primary domain of the state, we should be afraid. While they privatise everything from education and health to border controls and prisons, they stash their profits away in secret offshore accounts.

And while they have unrivalled access to decision makers they avoid democratic processes by setting up secret courts enabling them to bypass all judicial systems applicable to people.

Meanwhile their raison d’etre of perpetual growth in a finite world is causing environmental destruction and driving climate change. From Sports Direct’s slave-like working conditions to BP’s oil spill devastating people’s homes, stories of corporations violating rights are all too often seen in our daily papers.

Taming the corporate behemoth

Yet the power of corporations is so great within our society that they have undermined the idea that there is any other way to run society. We are all too familiar with hearing about the threat of ‘losing corporate investment’ or companies ‘taking their business somewhere else’ as if the government’s number one task is to attract corporate investment.

It is this corporate agenda that permeates the governing institutions of the global economy, like the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund, whose policies and operations have given more importance to the ‘rights’ of big business than the rights and needs of people and the environment.

The problem of unrestrained corporate power is massive, and it requires a massive solution. That is why Global Justice Now is launching a petition to the UK government demanding that it backs the new UN initiative for a legally binding global treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.

This UN treaty is the result of campaigning by countries from across the global south for international laws to regulate the activities of TNCs. In June 2014 they successfully got a resolution passed in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) establishing the need for such a treaty.

A working group of member states has been set up to take the treaty forward, chaired by Ecuador, they have met once already in 2015, and have the next meeting scheduled for October 2016 to discuss the scope and content of the treaty. Meanwhile, civil society groups from across the world have come together and formed the Treaty Alliance movement which aims to make sure the treaty comes in to being with truly meaningful content.

Although it may sound like a boring technical process, this treaty is something we should be excited about because it provides a huge opportunity in the fight to restrain corporate power.

It has massive potential to withdraw the privileges that corporations have gained over recent decades and force them to comply with international human rights law, international labour law and international environmental standards. It would oblige governments to take the power of corporations seriously, and hold them to account for the power they wield.

This would standardise how different governments relate to multinationals which means that rather than allowing them to play countries off against one another in a race to the bottom, it would force minimum standards.

Surprise: UK’s unelected government supports corporations over people

But the UK government, well known for its cosy relationship with corporations, has so far refused to take part in this UN treaty. And the UK is not alone, most other EU countries are also opposed to the treaty.

We need to make sure our government doesn’t pass up on this rare opportunity to provide genuine protection for the victims of human rights abuses committed by multinational corporations and place binding obligations on all governments to hold their corporations to account for their impacts on people and the planet.

That’s why groups across the continent are joining forces to make sure their leaders participate in the Geneva talks this October. The petition launched today, urging governments across Europe to participate in the Geneva talks will be delivered to national and EU leaders on October 12th.

Of course, the battle against corporate power has many fronts and the UN treaty is only one part of it. At the same time, we need to continue to develop alternative ways to produce and distribute the goods and services we need.

We need to undermine the notion that only massive corporations can make the economy and society ‘work’. Food sovereignty and energy democracy are just two examples of how it is possible to build an economy without corporations.

But as long as corporations do play a role in our economy, we need to find ways to control their activity and prevent abuses. This is why we need to fight for this UN treaty.

The alternative is that we continue to rush towards the dystopian vision of unchallenged corporate power. We cannot allow this to happen. We must fight back.

Action: sign the petition urging the UK government to support the UN Treaty.

Join / support the Treaty Alliance.

Aisha Dodwell is campaigns and policy officer for Global Justice Now, working across the food, energy and trade campaigns.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

If it were a country, aviation would be the seventh largest greenhouse gas emitter. Flying is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. Between 1990 and 2012, emissions from flying increased by 76%.

But the aviation sector is not covered by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 1997, governments decided to exclude aviation and shipping emissions from the Kyoto Protocol. They handed over responsibility for reducing emissions from flying to the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

In the 19 years since the Kyoto Protocol, ICAO has been spectacularly ineffective at reducing emissions from aviation. Every year more and more people are flying. More than one million ‘super commuters’ in the USA take the plane to work.

A certain amount can be done to make aeroplanes more efficient. But these changes are slow. The industry isn’t going to scrap all its existing planes to replace them with more modern, more efficient models.

Biofuels are one option that the industry is looking at. But a vast area of land would be required for biofuel plantations to feed the aviation industry. That means either clearing forests, or taking over agricultural land that is currently used for producing food. And biofuels are not carbon neutral.

Enter carbon trading

At its 2013 General Assembly, ICAO adopted Resolution A38-18: “Consolidated statement of continuing ICAO policies and practices related to environmental protection – Climate change”. ICAO’s response to climate change? Carbon offsets. Resolution A38-18 includes the following statement:

“to promote sustainable growth of aviation, a comprehensive approach, consisting of work on technology and standards, and on operational and market-based measures to reduce emissions is necessary;”

ICAO assumes that the expansion of avation is inevitable, and that growth should be promoted.

ICAO’s proposal relies heavily on carbon offsetting. The proposal gives the impression of taking action on climate change but it will do nothing to reduce emissions. Action on climate change means reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels. Carbon offsetting does not reduce emissions.

In theory, carbon trading reduces emissions in one place and allows them to continue somewhere else. In practice, the clean development mechanism massively increased production of HFC coolant gases purely to profit from carbon trading and in the process making climate change worse.

The entire point of a market-based mechanism (or carbon trading, as it used to be known, before the term became too controversial) is that it gives the impression that something is being done, without the necessity to actually reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Aviation offsets: A lifeline for REDD?

ICAO’s next General Assembly will take place in Montreal from 27 September to 7 October 2016. During the meeting ICAO is supposed to reach a decision on what this carbon market will look like.

On 3 September 2016, the USA and China put out a joint statement supporting an agreement in Montreal: “Today, the United States and China are expressing their support for the ICAO Assembly reaching consensus on such a measure.”

But the discussions so far have not gone well. There’s a repeat of the debate from the UNFCCC negotiations between the rich countries and the Global South about whose responsibility it is to reduce emissions. That’s ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ in UN jargon.

Even if ICAO does agree a carbon trading deal in Montreal, it will be voluntary for the first five years. Bill Hemmings of Brussels-based NGO Transport and Environment told Reuters: “Aviation, in particular, will need to make a fair contribution on the needed emissions reductions. A voluntary scheme will not achieve this.”

But this is a bit of a red herring. A voluntary carbon trading scheme would make a completely useless proposal to address climate change even more useless. With the prospect of introducing the completely useless version at some point in the future.

One of the discussions in Montreal will be whether to include REDD offsets in ICAO’s offsetting scheme.

As a way of addressing climate change, offsetting flying against the carbon stored in forests would be insane. Not only would such a scheme allow the aviation sector to continue expanding and to continue burning fossil fuels, it would rely on carbon being stored in forests. Yet as climate change worsens, the risk of these forests burning and returning the carbon to the atmosphere is increasing.

REDD proponents such as Kevin Conrad and Norway’s Per Pharo are in favour. But more than 80 NGOs (including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International) have signed on to a statement opposing ICAO’s offsetting plans.

Offsetting: ‘Worse than doing nothing’

Climate change is getting worse. The last 12 months has been the hottest on record. Glaciers and sea ice are shrinking. In 2015, James Hansen and a team of climate scientists warned that sea level could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted.

Heatwaves are longer and more intense. Heatwaves last year in India and Pakistan killed thousands of people. In May 2016, India recorded its highest temperature ever. Forest fires, flooding and droughts are getting worse. Hurricans in the North Atlantic are getting more frequent and more intense. Permafrost is melting. As it melts it’s releasing methane. And anthrax. Permafrost covers 20% of the earth’s land surface.

In 2011, Professor Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said:

“Offsetting is worse than doing nothing. It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.”

The last thing we need now is a massive new carbon trading mechanism that will allow hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuel carbon to be emitted to the atmosphere. But that is precisely what ICAO is proposing.

Chris Lang runs REDD-Monitor, which aims to facilitate discussion about the concept of reducing deforestation and forest degradation as a way of addressing climate change.

This article was originally published on REDD Monitor.

If it were a country, aviation would be the seventh largest greenhouse gas emitter. Flying is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. Between 1990 and 2012, emissions from flying increased by 76%.

But the aviation sector is not covered by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 1997, governments decided to exclude aviation and shipping emissions from the Kyoto Protocol. They handed over responsibility for reducing emissions from flying to the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

In the 19 years since the Kyoto Protocol, ICAO has been spectacularly ineffective at reducing emissions from aviation. Every year more and more people are flying. More than one million ‘super commuters’ in the USA take the plane to work.

A certain amount can be done to make aeroplanes more efficient. But these changes are slow. The industry isn’t going to scrap all its existing planes to replace them with more modern, more efficient models.

Biofuels are one option that the industry is looking at. But a vast area of land would be required for biofuel plantations to feed the aviation industry. That means either clearing forests, or taking over agricultural land that is currently used for producing food. And biofuels are not carbon neutral.

Enter carbon trading

At its 2013 General Assembly, ICAO adopted Resolution A38-18: “Consolidated statement of continuing ICAO policies and practices related to environmental protection – Climate change”. ICAO’s response to climate change? Carbon offsets. Resolution A38-18 includes the following statement:

“to promote sustainable growth of aviation, a comprehensive approach, consisting of work on technology and standards, and on operational and market-based measures to reduce emissions is necessary;”

ICAO assumes that the expansion of avation is inevitable, and that growth should be promoted.

ICAO’s proposal relies heavily on carbon offsetting. The proposal gives the impression of taking action on climate change but it will do nothing to reduce emissions. Action on climate change means reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels. Carbon offsetting does not reduce emissions.

In theory, carbon trading reduces emissions in one place and allows them to continue somewhere else. In practice, the clean development mechanism massively increased production of HFC coolant gases purely to profit from carbon trading and in the process making climate change worse.

The entire point of a market-based mechanism (or carbon trading, as it used to be known, before the term became too controversial) is that it gives the impression that something is being done, without the necessity to actually reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Aviation offsets: A lifeline for REDD?

ICAO’s next General Assembly will take place in Montreal from 27 September to 7 October 2016. During the meeting ICAO is supposed to reach a decision on what this carbon market will look like.

On 3 September 2016, the USA and China put out a joint statement supporting an agreement in Montreal: “Today, the United States and China are expressing their support for the ICAO Assembly reaching consensus on such a measure.”

But the discussions so far have not gone well. There’s a repeat of the debate from the UNFCCC negotiations between the rich countries and the Global South about whose responsibility it is to reduce emissions. That’s ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ in UN jargon.

Even if ICAO does agree a carbon trading deal in Montreal, it will be voluntary for the first five years. Bill Hemmings of Brussels-based NGO Transport and Environment told Reuters: “Aviation, in particular, will need to make a fair contribution on the needed emissions reductions. A voluntary scheme will not achieve this.”

But this is a bit of a red herring. A voluntary carbon trading scheme would make a completely useless proposal to address climate change even more useless. With the prospect of introducing the completely useless version at some point in the future.

One of the discussions in Montreal will be whether to include REDD offsets in ICAO’s offsetting scheme.

As a way of addressing climate change, offsetting flying against the carbon stored in forests would be insane. Not only would such a scheme allow the aviation sector to continue expanding and to continue burning fossil fuels, it would rely on carbon being stored in forests. Yet as climate change worsens, the risk of these forests burning and returning the carbon to the atmosphere is increasing.

REDD proponents such as Kevin Conrad and Norway’s Per Pharo are in favour. But more than 80 NGOs (including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International) have signed on to a statement opposing ICAO’s offsetting plans.

Offsetting: ‘Worse than doing nothing’

Climate change is getting worse. The last 12 months has been the hottest on record. Glaciers and sea ice are shrinking. In 2015, James Hansen and a team of climate scientists warned that sea level could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted.

Heatwaves are longer and more intense. Heatwaves last year in India and Pakistan killed thousands of people. In May 2016, India recorded its highest temperature ever. Forest fires, flooding and droughts are getting worse. Hurricans in the North Atlantic are getting more frequent and more intense. Permafrost is melting. As it melts it’s releasing methane. And anthrax. Permafrost covers 20% of the earth’s land surface.

In 2011, Professor Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said:

“Offsetting is worse than doing nothing. It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.”

The last thing we need now is a massive new carbon trading mechanism that will allow hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuel carbon to be emitted to the atmosphere. But that is precisely what ICAO is proposing.

Chris Lang runs REDD-Monitor, which aims to facilitate discussion about the concept of reducing deforestation and forest degradation as a way of addressing climate change.

This article was originally published on REDD Monitor.