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© Lora Denis
January 15, 2025–Tony Morris
Conservation News•Climate Change•How To•Reduce Your Footprint•Stewardship and restoration
Sydenham River Nature Reserve, Fall Planting Event 2023 © Kayla Salive
In December 2024, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released a new assessment report on progress towards halting biodiversity collapse. This latest international report again highlights the urgency of addressing global biodiversity loss and presents a roadmap to drive fundamental, or in this case, transformative societal changes to halt and reverse the decline of nature.
This report is known as the Transformative Change Report and builds on the 2019 global assessment report. The report was approved on December 16, 2024 in Windhoek, Namibia by the IPBES Plenary, which consists of 147 member governments, including Canada. The report defines transformative change as shifts in views – how people think, know and see; structures – how we organize, regulate and govern; and practices – how we act, behave and relate.
This report was prepared over three years by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries. It offers five strategies to advance transformative change for global sustainability:
The underlying causes of biodiversity loss identified in the report are the disconnection of people from nature, including an often domination mentality towards the natural world by humanity; inequitable concentration of power and wealth; and prioritization of short-term individual and material gains. This framing is relevant to the variety of environmental challenges we face and demonstrates that the only way to ensure the sustainability of the natural world is to transform the way our societies operate to recognize that humanity is part of and dependent on the well-being of the natural world.
Yet our political and economic systems continue to perpetuate this dangerous cycle, viewing these challenges in isolation, or worse, actually regressing on transformative change (e.g., as we’ve seen in Ontario through the new Provincial Planning Statement or the continued weakening of the Endangered Species Act).
It is exhausting to continue to read report after report regarding the precarious state of the natural world. Scientists have been sounding the alarm bells for decades. The clock is certainly ticking. Repairing humanity’s relationship with the natural world is a necessary imperative. The challenge goes beyond individual actions and will require collective action to drive the necessary political, economic and social changes for a truly sustainable world.
To me, truly transformative change will be a world where conservationists are not considered a “third-party” or a “special interest,” but one where all of humanity recognizes themselves as responsible for conservation of the natural world.
To learn more about the IPBES, visit their homepage.
Northern leopard frog © Jozsef Szasz-Fabian
Reports are useless if the powers that be don’t take them seriously and act on them instead of advocating for those with the means to hurt OUR environment in the name of progress and ultimately financial gain. All the money in the world will not replenish the irreversible loss of species and the lands that in fact sustain humanity.
A really informative article. It is true that we have an abundance of reports, and we all know what the problems are. Each of us has to be change that we want to see, and we cannot expect those who profit from environmental imbalance to be at the forefront of change.
The next generation has to understand that we are Nature and are interconnected with all things.
Thanks for highlighting the urgency for transformative change for biodiversity.