IKI funding area: Conserving biological diversity

Implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework (Last updated: April 2024)

Biological diversity is the basis for the functionality of ecosystems, and their ecosystem services are essential for the survival of humans and other living beings. These services secure food production, regulate the water balance and ensure clean air. Nature helps us to protect the climate and defends us against natural disasters such as floods or landslides.

Biodiversity also plays a key role in human health and well-being. Not only do intact ecosystems offer a variety of natural remedies and recreational opportunities, they are also a basic requirement for preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. If sufficient habitats and retreat areas are available for wild animals, the transmission of pathogens from animals to humans is minimised, with the ecosystems acting as a natural protective barrier between the two.

Conserving biological diversity is therefore one of the most important tasks of our time. Species and nature conservation are intrinsically linked with climate protection. The German government is working together with other countries at international level to find a solution to this major challenge. To this end, it has committed to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the 2030 Agenda with its ambitious 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), published in May 2019, makes it clear that greater levels of commitment and implementation are needed in order to counteract the loss of biodiversity.

The Global Biodiversity Framework

With the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the international community has adopted an ambitious framework that builds on and replaces previous targets (e.g. the ‘Aichi Biodiversity Targets’). The GBF was adopted at the 15^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP 15) in 2022. It sets out an ambitious path to realising the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050 and supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Key targets to be achieved by 2030 include placing at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and marine areas under protection in a manner that recognises indigenous and ancestral traditional territories, and halting and reversing the trend of biodiversity loss.

The IKI’s three priority fields of action within the funding area of biodiversity

The International Climate Initiative (IKI) is an important element of Germany’s contribution to the international financing of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. Since 2011, the conservation of biodiversity has been a separate funding area within the IKI. Biodiversity is also an important cross-cutting issue in other funding areas, and many projects in these areas also contribute to biodiversity conservation.

The current guideline for IKI activities in the area of biodiversity conservation funding is the Global Biodiversity Framework from 2022 and the long-term and action targets formulated therein. The Strategy of the International Climate Initiative until 2030 therefore defines the following three priority fields of action for the biodiversity funding area:

1. Strengthening the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)

The IKI supports its partner countries in revising and implementing the NBSAPs. In doing so, it takes all social groups into account and, in particular, promotes the greater involvement of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC).

2. Habitat protection and restoration

Among the things that the IKI promotes in this field of action are

the implementation of the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework – which contribute to sustainable spatial planning and the protection of habitats –
functioning incentive systems for ecosystem protection,
capacity building and
sustainable business models that take biodiversity protection into account.

3. Mainstreaming biodiversity

Here, the aim is to strengthen biodiversity conservation at all levels – for example in legislation, in the private sector on the financial market and among the public. This applies in particular to sectors such as fisheries, agriculture and forestry, mining and infrastructure, which play a particularly large role in the loss of global biodiversity.

Approaches in IKI´s project work

IKI projects increase the capacity of governments and civil society in partner countries to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity through investments, cooperation with the private sector, policy advice, capacity building, technology transfer and research cooperation.

The concept of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change is a central approach that links the funding areas of “adaptation to the impacts of climate change” and “conserving biological diversity”.
Important thematic starting points derived from the fields of action are the topics of sustainable production methods, biodiversity-friendly agriculture and forestry and sustainable fisheries.

In addition, biodiversity in cities – and, accordingly, the interactions between rural and urban areas and their mutual dependency – is becoming an increasingly important topic, because innovative nature-based solutions can create biodiversity-promoting habitats that have a significant impact on the climate in very small spaces in urban areas. In the IKI strategy, this aspect is addressed in the overarching priority area “Developing sustainable and climate-friendly urban and peri-urban areas”.

At a glance

From 2008 to the end of 2023, 419 biodiversity-related projects with a total funding volume of about 1.9 billion euros were approved.

Selected projects

Topic page on the CBD COP 16

The IKI at the CBD COP 16 in Cali, Colombia

NBSAP Accelerator Partnership

The IKI was involved in the formation of the global partnership in 2022, with which it will make an important contribution to the implementation of the GBF goals in the partner countries by 2030.

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