🌱
Roadmap Towards Nature Credits
The European Commission's Communication outlines a roadmap towards Nature Credits, proposing a framework to financially reward individuals and entities for nature-positive actions that enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services. It emphasizes the economic importance of nature and the insufficiency of public funding alone to address the global biodiversity financing gap. The document introduces nature credits as a voluntary, market-based tool derived from independently certified and verified nature-positive outcomes, aiming to attract private investment and complement existing public initiatives. The roadmap details steps for developing robust methodologies, ensuring governance and integrity, fostering stakeholder cooperation, and leveraging lessons from carbon markets to build a credible and scalable system for nature credits within the EU. Ultimately, the goal is to establish a transformative instrument that integrates with broader environmental policies and empowers a nature-positive economy.
🌍
EU Biodiversity Strategy: Bringing Nature Back to Life
The provided source, "EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Bringing Nature Back to Life," is a comprehensive communication from the European Commission outlining its plan to halt biodiversity loss and restore nature within the EU by 2030. It emphasizes that biodiversity is essential for human well-being, economic prosperity, and resilience against global challenges like pandemics and climate change. The strategy proposes legally binding targets for protecting and restoring ecosystems on land and sea, including expanding protected areas and implementing an EU Nature Restoration Plan focusing on agricultural land, forests, urban areas, and marine and freshwater environments. Furthermore, it details a new governance framework to ensure effective implementation and enforcement, and outlines mechanisms for securing investments, fostering business engagement, and promoting sustainable practices. The document also highlights the EU's commitment to leading global efforts for an ambitious post-2020 biodiversity framework, advocating for stronger international agreements, sustainable trade policies, and increased international cooperation.