The UN Development Programme (UNDP) welcomes the historic agreement reached at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity today to agree a new plan to preserve and protect nature with the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.      

This agreement means people around the world can hope for real progress to halt biodiversity loss and protect and restore our lands and seas in a way that safeguards our planet and respects the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.  

The adopted text includes multiple important targets that frame the actions we must now take to halt runaway biodiversity loss, how we fund this and how progress will be monitored and reported.   

The global community has come together and agreed on an ambitious pathway. Now, we must carry forward this vision.   

For our part, through the ‘UNDP Nature Pledge,’ together with the UN Environment Programme and other partners, we are committed to turning this blueprint into reality. We are ready for action. UNDP is there to deliver the systemic changes that can shift the needle on our nature crisis.    

With governments and people around the world, we will work together to secure a better, more sustainable, more equitable future.    

Over 140 countries will now be supported under the ‘UNDP Nature Pledge’, where our on-the-ground presence is mobilized for action.    

Biodiversity is interconnected, intertwined, and indivisible with human life on Earth. Our societies and our economies depend on healthy and functioning ecosystems. There is no sustainable development without biodiversity. There can be no stable climate without biodiversity.    

One of the most dangerous delusions is that we have a choice whether or not we preserve nature, because the stark truth is that we do not. Today’s agreement is a historic moment in recognition of this truth, and a moment that, if answered with actions as agreed, may set a course for a thriving future on a healthy planet that leaves no one behind.