World governments failing Earth’s ecosystems, says top conservationist

Governments are lagging behind on international commitments to safeguard the planet’s ecosystems, with politicians failing to grasp that economic growth depends upon environmental protection, the head of the world’s leading conservation organisation has warned.

ulia Marton-Lefèvre, director general of the IUCN, the body that advises the United Nations on environmental matters, told Guardian Australia that conservation needed to be properly embraced by political leaders.

“I think world leaders have many other issues to deal with and sometimes they don’t see how protecting nature is essential for our wellbeing,” she said.

“On a planet with 7bn people, moving to 9bn, this isn’t just about protecting our beautiful places, it’s protecting the places that provide us with water and food and protect us from extreme weather.”

Marton-Lefèvre is in Sydney for the World Parks Congress, a once-in-a-decade international conservation gathering that starts this week.

The week-long congress will feature an update on global progress in meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Signed in 1992 by 193 nations, a key target is to protect at least 17% of the world’s terrestrial areas and 10% of marine areas by 2020.

Ahead of the official release of the target’s update, Marton-Lefèvre admitted that progress on this goal is “not that optimistic”.

“I’d say the analysis will remind us how much more we have to do,” she said. “We are doing pretty well on the terrestrial protection, up to 15% protected, but the marine areas are more difficult. We’re only on around 3% protected. We are doing pretty well in national jurisdictions but not so well on the high seas.

“It’s easy to make these commitments but it’s really important to keep on top of them. We’re not only talking about the size of protected areas but also how they are protected – we can’t have so-called ‘paper parks’ where they are just drawn on a map and not managed.”

Marton-Lefèvre, who is stepping down as director general at the end of the year, said the world was moving “slowly” on environmental protection and must do much better in protecting critical habitat.

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