Report: Dutch organisations mainly work together on biodiversity goals.

During the Biodiversity Summit, which will take place in October 2021 in Kunming, China, targets must be established for 2030 to improve global biodiversity. To this end, IUCN NL is compiling the Dutch Action Agenda for Biodiversity on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). But to what extent does biodiversity feature on the agenda of Dutch organisations? In which areas are things improving and in which areas could we do better? This served as the basis of our analysis in the ‘Dutch non-state actor contributions to the Aichi targets’ report.

The report provides an overview and analysis of biodiversity initiatives by Dutch organisations between 2010 and 2020. We focused on the link between the initiatives and the global biodiversity targets for 2020, the ‘Aichi targets’.

The report reveals that Dutch organisations are working on various fronts to enhance biodiversity and thus contribute to the global biodiversity targets established for 2020. Many of the initiatives will continue to run after 2020, which means they are also important for the Action Agenda for 2030.

Local biodiversity restoration

The vast majority of the organisations have taken area-specific action so most biodiversity restoration results are achieved at the local level. However, the collective impact of all these initiatives on biodiversity is not yet visible at the national level. ‘Until now, efforts made by the authorities and other organisations are insufficient to improve biodiversity in the Netherlands’, says Henk Simons, Senior Expert Nature Conservation at IUCN NL, one of the authors of the report.

Increasing awareness and participation

The report indicates that the initiatives contribute to raising awareness of biodiversity and to greater participation by citizens and businesses in nature conservation. ‘This can act as a catalyst for other initiatives and for more ambitious policy at the provincial and national level’, emphasises Simons.