First meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group for the development of the global framework on biodiversity post-2020 under the UN Convention for biodiversity conservation

It was opened in Nairobi, at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Agency, the first meeting of the "open working group" to focus on defining the post 2020 agenda for biodiversity conservation on a global scale. The assembly of experts in Kenya (Open-Ended Intersessional Working Group,OEWG) is called to develop the next ten-year strategic plan for biodiversity, which will be launched at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties - the assembly of which the countries that signed the the UN Convention for the Conservation of Biodiversity (CBD) are part of it - and which will take place in China in 2020.

In view of this appointment, a group of international experts will have different meeting in several sessions to start the negotiations for the new Plan. This should be the springboard to the "2050 vision", entitled "Living in harmony with nature" https://www.cbd.int/decision/cop/?id=12268). The decline of biodiversity is one of the big environmental problems that humanity is facing also because it is not a simple concept to communicate to politicians and citizens: for this reason public opinion and most political decision makers don’t fully perceived the seriousness of that decline.

Over the past 50 years, a range of national and international instruments have been set up to conserve biodiversity. These include national strategies for biodiversity and actions on biodiversity, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 (which includes the objectives of Aichi), the Cartagena Protocol on bio-security, the Nagoya Protocol and the intergovernmental platform for biodiversity and eco-systemic services. An ISPRA expert will join the work of the OEWG, along with other representatives of the Italian Ministry of the Environment, Land and Sea.