Focus Interview： Building a Community of Life on Earth

Cctv news(Focus Interview): On October 15th, the first phase of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) ended in Kunming. The conference with the theme of "Ecological Civilization: Building a Community of Life on Earth" is considered as a landmark meeting in the history of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. So, how will this important meeting, which concerns the future well-being of mankind, affect our world? What achievements have been made?

The first phase of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity is a high-standard international conference. Participants held high-level political dialogues around the theme of "Ecological Civilization: Building a Community of Life on Earth" to plan a blueprint for biodiversity protection in the next 10 years.

The Kunming Declaration adopted at the ministerial plenary meeting on October 13th is the main achievement of this meeting. The Kunming Declaration promises to formulate, adopt and implement an effective "Global Biodiversity Framework after 2020" to reverse the current trend of biodiversity loss and ensure that biodiversity will be restored by 2030 at the latest, so as to fully realize the 2050 vision of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

"Mainstreaming" is a key word of Kunming Declaration, which is to incorporate biodiversity protection into the planning and design of national or regional political, economic and social development and construction. It is a "good medicine" for biodiversity compliance in the past and a declaration of action in the future. The Kunming Declaration made 17 commitments, including governments’ continuing cooperation to promote the integration or "mainstreaming" of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into decision-making, speeding up and strengthening the formulation and updating of national biodiversity conservation strategies and action plans, strengthening and establishing an effective protected land system, and actively improving the global environmental legal framework.

"Change" is another key word of the Kunming Declaration, which appears many times in the text. As the main achievement of the conference, the Kunming Declaration was drafted by the Chinese side, and nearly 400 opinions were collected and finally formed. It is the first political document embodying the concept of ecological civilization under the framework of the United Nations multilateral environmental agreements. This is a change in the concept of biodiversity governance and also embodies the consensus of all parties.

The Kunming Declaration also calls on all parties to take actions to respond to the call of building a community of life on earth, curb the loss of biodiversity, give consideration to protection and development, and enhance human well-being.

The Kunming Declaration expresses the parties’ confidence and determination in the future biodiversity protection. As a leader, China is one of knowing and doing. In practice, China relies on the "community of life" to build consensus and follows the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" to coordinate protection and development. This year, the Asian elephants have been widely concerned at home and abroad, which also fully demonstrated the positive efforts made by China in wildlife protection. In China, there are many such cases. While people are carefully guarding the Asian elephants, the "hometown" green peacocks of Asian elephants who also live in Yunnan have also been carefully protected.

Green peacock is a national first-class protected animal in China, which is mainly distributed in Yuanjiang River Basin of Yunnan. According to 2014— The national survey in 2017 showed that there were only less than 500 at that time. Due to the scarcity of population, the research on green peacocks is also very little.

In order to strengthen the protection and research of green peacocks, Yuxi stopped a water conservancy project under construction in the habitat of green peacocks, and deployed infrared cameras in the habitat. At the same time, various measures such as planting crops with organic fertilizer, establishing condominium protection zones for green peacocks and building ecological corridors are taken to protect the wild population of green peacocks. While stepping up protection in the wild, in 2019, Yunnan Province launched an artificial breeding project for green peacocks, which successfully bred and hatched the next generation.

At the meeting, China announced that it would invest 1.5 billion yuan to set up the Kunming Biodiversity Fund. Construct a nature reserve system with national parks as the main body, and formally establish the first batch of national parks such as Sanjiangyuan and Giant Panda; Peak carbon dioxide emissions implementation plans for key areas and industries and a series of support and safeguard measures have been released one after another, and a "1+N" policy system for peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality has been established, contributing to the implementation of the Kunming Declaration with China’s wisdom and China’s plan.

In addition to national parks, China’s land spatial planning system and its ecological red line system, permanent basic farmland and urban development boundary red line system take into account the use of human space, and can achieve the goals of climate, biodiversity and desertification control at the same time.

Another important activity of this conference is the two-day ecological civilization forum. Representatives from all countries and fields around the world talked and exchanged ideas, shared wisdom and reached a consensus around the theme of "helping each other in the same boat and building a harmonious and beautiful world".

The important achievement of the forum is the joint initiative on "protecting biodiversity and building a global ecological civilization". The initiative calls on all parties to work together, take action, adhere to the concept of ecological civilization, and build a harmonious world for all things.

The earth is the common mother of mankind. We should leave her an eternal smile. As advocated at this meeting, biodiversity protection cannot be achieved by a single measure, a single action, a single country or a single organization. It is necessary to comprehensively coordinate the environmental, economic and social roles to solve the deterioration of biodiversity. This requires all forces including governments to participate in biodiversity protection, so as to ensure the formulation, adoption and implementation of an effective "Global Biodiversity Framework after 2020". Let us look forward to the expected outcome of the second phase of the meeting planned for next year. Everything is symbiotic, and Mother Earth will be more beautiful.