Denmark is not likely to meet the majority of the 20 UN targets that the international community adopted in 2010 in Nagoya, Japan to protect biodiversity in the world.
According to analysis by the Danish Society for Nature Conservation (DN) and the World Wide Fund (WWF), the country has so far reached only one of the targets (number 16), which concerns providing access to genetic resources and the benefits of their utilisation.
“As one of the world’s richest countries, Denmark has so far not been able to cope with the task,” Ann Berit Frostholm, a spokesperson for DN, told Metroxpress.
“It cannot simply be pushed onto the next generation.”
READ MORE: Danish biodiversity in decline
Lagging behind
The international community is currently debating the current state of, and future initiatives for, the protection and conservation of the world’s biological diversity at a conference in Cancun, Mexico, where the environment and food minister, Esben Lunde Larsen, on Saturday confirmed the country’s commitment to reaching the UN goals.
A day later, Larsen continued his travels across Latin America to Colombia to promote Danish pork.
The nature NGOs claim Denmark has made some progress towards reaching eights of the 20 targets, while the rest have not been tackled much – including two related to vulnerable ecosystems and financing that are worse off than before.
In general the biodiversity goals focus on safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity; promoting sustainability; mainstreaming biodiversity across society; reducing direct pressures (from agriculture); and sharing benefits across borders.
