Restoring five million hectares and creating more than 522,000 jobs related to biodiversity are among the commitments Colombia has made by 2030

Six ambitious goals, made up of 191 actions, to restore biodiversity by 2030 were Colombia's first major announcement during the biodiversity summit (COP16). Before officially taking over the presidency of the conference, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad unveiled the country's Biodiversity Action Plan, one of the summit's commitments that only 34 countries have made so far.

Action plans are the specific measures that each country will take to comply with the Kunming-Montreal Framework by 2030. With its announcement on Monday, Colombia not only set an example, but also took an "ambitious but achievable" position, according to the government, which hopes that the other countries attending the summit that have not yet presented their plans will decide to do so.

One of Colombia's goals is to create territories with ecosystem integrity and regenerative models, and to this end it will seek to restore and convert a total of 5,000,000 hectares to sustainable production models. In addition, the country has the goal of promoting the biodiversity economy, and to achieve this, it is expected that the environmental sector will increase from 0.8% to 3% of GDP, which implies the creation of 522,000 jobs through bioeconomy models.

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On the other hand, the country also aims to improve the governance of all sectors, and in this sense, one of the objectives is to achieve 34% of the conservation and management of terrestrial, inland water and coastal marine areas, through systems of protected areas, Omec and indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant territories, thus consolidating ethnic territorial rights, as well as the establishment of protection measures for environmental defenders. In addition, the financial models for this plan to work is another of the goals where the country will try to mobilize resources from all sources by 2030 to meet the ambition set out in the Action Plan.

Colombia also aims to reduce environmental crime, for example by ensuring that by the end of the decade at least 50% of products derived from biodiversity are legally and sustainably produced, marketed and used in communities with high biodiversity value. Finally, the country will focus on communities with the goal of participatory planning, where it is proposed that at least 19 million hectares with loss of ecological integrity in continental and coastal marine areas be included in a participatory manner as determinants of land use planning.

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The elaboration of the goals and the 191 actions that comprise them took more than a year, with meetings attended by more than 16,000 people and 23 regional meetings. In this regard, and considering that the business and productive sector will be the key to achieving these goals, the Ministry of the Environment held discussions with 15 ministerial departments, the National Planning Department, three business associations (Andi, Acopi, and the National Business Council), Finance and Insurance (Mesa Permanente de Concertación Indígena, Mesa Regional Amazónica), and the Fifth Commission for Territory, Environment and Mining and Energy Resources of the National Space for Prior Consultation with Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, Palenquero and Peasant Communities.

As the Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, explained to EL TIEMPO, the main objective is to define actions that will allow biodiversity to become a major productive sector of the economy and generate growth opportunities for the country, while making sustainable use of natural resources.

"This plan basically helps us to see what our 2030 strategy is for the conservation of biodiversity. We have six very specific goals with a lot of public consultation at the national level, and we want to thank all the sectors for their participation. They are goals that really build towards the economy, towards land-use planning and environmental conservation," the official said.

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According to experts, Colombia's goals are ambitious but achievable if they are properly implemented by the different sectors of society, with the business sector as a fundamental pillar. According to Benjamín Quesada, climatologist and director of the undergraduate program in Earth System Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario, this productive reconversion strategy, understood as the collective management of agricultural production systems to achieve efficient use of land and water, aims to increase resilience, sustainability and competitiveness, but also to reduce land-use conflicts and environmental impacts on strategic ecosystems. However, he points out that it is common for countries to set goals on paper that are then difficult to achieve.

"It is very common to establish plans, goals and targets with very large and ambitious numbers, such as 5 million hectares by 2030, but what needs to be shown to the public to create credibility is the precise list of actions, the experience involved, the financing and, above all, the monitoring of results based on scientific evidence. There is no doubt that there have been results, but they need to be shown. If there is no monitoring, we will not be able to evaluate effectiveness. This is what is needed, real implementation, moving from talk to action, as the United Nations Secretary-General said at the opening of COP16," said Quesada.

Sandra Vilardy, PhD in Ecology and Environment and researcher at the Universidad de los Andes, said that it is possible to achieve the goals, but much of the achievement will be in the hands of the agricultural sector and how it can be transformed to allow, for example, less polluting livestock.

"These goals are part of the urgency that we have to make the transformations that are required not only by the Kunming-Montreal Framework, but also to avoid major losses, not only biological, but also social and economic. This agenda of productive conversion must go hand in hand, especially with the Ministry of Agriculture, and related to how we can help, in collaboration with the banks, to make the appropriate productive transformations so that we can think of regenerative or silvopastoral systems. Agricultural production no longer degrades biodiversity; on the contrary, it can reassemble ecological functions to increase natural capital," said the former Vice Minister of the Environment.   

In this regard, the president of the National Environmental Forum, Manuel Rodríguez Becerra, stressed that if the goal of restoring hectares is achieved, it will be an unprecedented event for the country. "It is unprecedented in Colombia. The Green Plan, implemented between 1994 and 2002, covered 250,000 hectares. According to Minambiente, today only 10% of the restored area remains, and at that time it was financed with US$250,000," said the expert.

EDWIN CAICEDO

Environment and Health Journalist

@CaicedoUcros