By Gregg Howald, Advanced Conservation Strategies

Celebrated on May 22, this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity follows the long-awaited adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which sets out an ambitious pathway for governments and other stakeholders to conserve the world’s biodiversity over the next decade and beyond. This year’s theme “From Agreement to Action: Build Back Biodiversity”, builds on the results of the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) and highlights the need to translate the Framework’s ambitious goals and targets into action.

Across regions, biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented and alarming rate, with one million species of plants and animals currently threatened with extinction. While over the past few decades conservation efforts have yielded promising results, the increasing number of endangered species and the accelerating rate of ecosystem degradation is commanding new approaches and transformative tools to halt and ideally reverse current trends.