Leaders pledge funds to protect biodiversity

Governments from across the world have agreed to significantly increase spending on protecting biodiversity to ensure the internationally agreed Aichi targets are met.

At the 11th conference of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India, representatives from developed countries committed to doubling financial support to developing economies to prevent biodiversity loss by 2015, as well as investing more to protect ecosystems within their own borders.

There was also agreement on protecting a series of biologically important marine areas that fall between national authorities, and on new targets to increase the number of countries including biodiversity in their national development plans.

The agreements followed a warning at the start of the conference that international progress towards the 2020 targets was poor and that half of the world’s richest biodiversity zones remain unprotected.