Almost every platform under the United Nations, and more distinctively in the several Conference of Parties (COPs) in recent years, are showing more concerns on how anthropogenic-influenced interventions are negatively impacting the overall health of the blue planet, endangering every form of life on Earth, now and in the future.
By Salam Rajesh
The world at large is currently caught up in dialogues that concern the future of planet Earth in relation to the discussions of the impacts on the planetary health following evident changes in the way humans have in common with the blue planet as in the present times, in the past and possibly in future times.
Nature is essential for human existence and good quality of life. This statement describes the purpose and objectivity of IUCN’s ‘Nature 2030: One Nature One Future’ program that builds upon this true-value assessment of life on Earth. The program was adopted at the IUCN World Conservation Congress at Marseille, France in 2020.
The IUCN’s Nature 2030 program for years 2021 to 2024 sought in leading a major role in achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, importantly, Life below Water (SDG 14) and Life on Land (SDG 15), while “aligning with the other Sustainable Development Goals and, in particular, bringing IUCN’s knowledge and collective action to help deliver the goals of Health and Well-being (SDG3), Gender Equality (SDG5), Clean Water (SDG 6), Climate Action (SDG13), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16)”.
Almost every platform under the United Nations, and more distinctively in the several Conference of Parties (COPs) in recent years, are showing more concerns on how anthropogenic-influenced interventions are negatively impacting the overall health of the blue planet, endangering every form of life on Earth, now and in the future.
The UN Ocean Conference at Nice, France, the other day (09-13 June, 2025) talked of the dangers to marine life and ecosystem from the deliberate dumping of plastic waste into the seas and oceans. There are enough evidences of marine wildlife caught and entangled in discarded plastic nets and ropes, while plastic pellets are creating havoc with ocean ecosystems, including endangering coastal communities.
The IUCN 2030 campaign focuses on protecting species, ecosystems, habitats and genetic diversity through addressing the drivers (of change) and targeted conservation actions so that people can conserve the planet’s life support systems. This otherwise reflects IUCN’s stated objective that Nature is vital for humans’, and other living beings’, continued existence on this planet.
Based on its stated vision of “A just World that Values and Conserves Nature”, the IUCN’s program sets its ambition in the decadal timeframe between years 2021 to 2030 in rhyme with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), and is a call for mobilization of all its members, and supporters, to take up the spadework effectively in achieving the set goals.
Set in the backdrop of the world in a crisis where rapid loss of biodiversity and dangerously changing climate are major indicators of the crisis, the World Conservation Union expressly stresses that conserving nature is fundamental to achieving a more prosperous, healthy, just and equitable world. This equally reflects upon the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.
Citing the dreadful times of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020-2021 that shocked the world with unaccounted deaths across the globe and disrupting the social and economic lives of the world community, the IUCN re-emphasizes that the world needs to reverse the loss of nature, recover the natural ecosystems, and do it right now if the world wants to achieve the vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature by 2050”, as was indicated in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity during 2022.
Based on the priority drivers and pressures on ecosystem services as addressed by the IUCN Program of 2021-2024, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessed 112,432 species and found that the extinction risk is rather high (~25%), and worsening.
The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems collaborates on the risks of ecosystem collapse. Comparing the 238,563 sites documented in the World Database on Protected Areas with 16,366 sites documented in the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas, the IUCN noted that the average protected area coverage of sites contributing significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity is only 43 percent.
It, therefore, is as plain as saying that many of the planetary systems that regulate climate and support life on Earth are suffering major impacts primarily from human activities. Anthropogenic influences on the negative side has largely been attributed to massive displacements of wildlife and the degeneration of vital ecosystems resulting from large scale clearing of pristine forests (example, prime tropical rainforests of Indonesia) for commercial explorations and exploitations of the natural resources.
Given the hardliner assessment as outlined in the IUCN report, things do not look bright at all, now and in the future. For instance, the report bluntly says that as per the 2019 Global Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the Global Biodiversity Outlook, it was observed that the world’s governments are not on track to deliver the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity.
At the same time, negative trends are revealed in the biome-specific assessments, that is, the Global Land Outlook showed productivity decline up to 20% of the vegetated land during 1998-2013, while the Global Wetlands Outlook showed a 35% decrease in the extent of wetlands since 1970.
The report further assessed that the World Ocean Assessment indicated severe and increasing human impacts through climate change, fisheries, ocean use and pollution, the latter being an increasing threat and worry for the world with indescribable defilation of the oceans.
Likewise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on global warming and on oceans indicated that the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused one degree Celsius global warming above the pre-industrial levels with widespread negative impacts, and that the net CO2 emissions would need to reach zero by 2050 and stay negative thereafter to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or face the imminent.
The Global Environmental Outlook and the Global Sustainable Development Report highlight that transformative changes are essentially required fast enough if these trends are to be reversed, the IUCN report stressed.
All is not lost though, says IUCN. There is great room for optimism where there is overwhelming evidence that conservation works and is an effective and essential contributor towards many of humanity’s goals, according to the world’s largest networking of conservation professionals, practitioners, and scholars.
It may not be out of context here to add that the world community had since accepted the fact that community-driven conservation at the grassroots is effectively proving successful where governments had failed miserably.