Line of action:

Private sector

Status:

En ejecución

Execution date:

2013

Project web page:

http://ieeb.fundacion-biodiversidad.es/

Biodiversity provides essential goods and services for human beings, regulates the climate and hydrological cycles, purifies water and air, protects and fertilizes the soil, pollinates crops. In short, it sustains the existence of the human being on Earth. We depend on these goods and services that ecosystems provide us to obtain much-needed resources such as food, medicines, or fiber. In fact, 40% of the world’s economy depends on the health of ecosystems. However, in recent decades we have witnessed the loss of this biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, which entails multiple environmental, economic and social impacts, and puts at risk the Earth’s ability to maintain the quality of life of human beings. The international community, aware of this reality, took up this challenge through the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, setting three specific objectives:

• Conservation of biological diversity;
• Sustainable use of its components;
• Fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources.

Since then, the Conferences of the Parties to the Convention (COP) have been held periodically in an attempt to advance towards these ends. During COP1O in Nagoya, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for the period 2011-2020 was also updated and approved. This document explicitly states the need for partnership, collaboration and paternarism at all levels in order to effectively implement this plan. To this end, it was pointed out that it was necessary to “promote the adoption of practices favorable to biological diversity by the business sector”. To achieve this goal, The Global Partnership for Business and Biodiversity has emerged, a partnership between the CBD and the business sector. The CBD Secretariat has encouraged the establishment of national and regional initiatives to facilitate a forum for dialogue among all stakeholders. Spain, as a signatory member of the CBD, develops the Spanish Business and Biodiversity Initiative through the Biodiversity Foundation.

• Integrate natural capital into business policy and management.
• To highlight the contribution of large companies to the conservation of natural heritage.
• Channel private financing to conserve biodiversity.

The challenge is to include the conservation and management of biodiversity in the business strategies of the different business sectors of the Spanish economy and to identify opportunities and alternative and innovative projects as one of the solutions to the current crisis.