ABC Works to Include AZE in the Convention on Biological Diversity

Jocotoco Antpitta. Photo: © Hugo Arnal

In October 2010, government leaders from around the world will meet in Nagoya, Japan to discuss numerous conservation topics at the tenth Conference to the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Though the United States has yet to join, the Convention provides an unprecedented opportunity to focus the international community on the plight of the world’s most threatened species.

Through the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), ABC and other leading conservation organizations are working with the global scientific and conservation communities to help ensure the maximum benefit for the rarest species through the implementation of the Convention. By providing feedback to the Secretariat, ABC is aiming to challenge governments to better protect their biodiversity and to aid countries to better monitor their success towards the 2010 biodiversity target.

Defining measurements to chart progress of biodiversity preservation is an enormous challenge due to the diversity of organisms worldwide. However, AZE offers a simple, straightforward, and easily measureable method of protecting global biodiversity, through the protection of sites that are the last refuges of critically endangered and endangered species.

Recently, the scientific body that recommends indicators to the Convention, the Biodiversity Indicator Partnership, adopted AZE as a sub-indicator under ‘Coverage of Protected Areas’. The inclusion of AZE will make the convention’s targets both more achievable and more focused. Some countries such as Brazil and Colombia are already working to protect these sites and their species, which are typically endemic to a given country and a source of national pride.

ABC has contributed to the protection of many AZE sites and species throughout Latin America, predominately through a network of private reserves. The economic value from tourism, carbon sequestration, and watershed protection are further incentives to safeguard these areas. Now that the Convention is adopting AZE as an indicator, this proven strategy will likely be a centerpiece for the continued protection of most imperiled species in the Americas.