What does wild nature do for climate?

It’s simple! Without sufficient amounts of wild nature, we cannot keep temperature rise below 2°C. Why? Because Earth’s primary forests, grasslands, and peat bogs store more than 100 parts per million (ppm) carbon in plants and soils, carbon that must remain in the ground if it is to not contribute to climate change.

In order to avoid the catastrophic effects from climate change Earth must remain well under 450 ppm in the atmosphere. At the end of 2019, the world has just over 408 ppm. Destroying even a quarter of our remaining wild areas would remove a critically necessary carbon sink that is – without any cost to society – helping us avert the worst effects of runaway climate change.

Read More:

Kormos, C. 2017. Primary Forests and Biodiversity. IntAct.

Carlson, M., J. Wells and Roberts, D. 2009. The carbon the world forgot: Conserving the capacity of Canada’s boreal forest region to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Boreal Songbird Initiative and Canadian Boreal Initiative, Seattle and Ottawa, Ontario. 33 pp.

What does wild nature do for people?

Besides producing the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soils that grow our food, and the stability we count on, wild nature also provides the livelihoods for over 1.6 billion people! Local communities living in or near wild places count on forests for food and forage, oceans for enough fish to feed their families, and grasslands for places to graze their livestock. Without healthy wild places, hundreds of millions of human livelihoods would be directly impacted, causing global social upheaval and instability on an unprecedented scale.

Read more:

UN Food & Agriculture Organization. 2015. Forests and Poverty Reduction.

How will we protect enough nature in time?

Indigenous and local peoples have sustained wild nature before there was ever even a “wilderness” or “nature needs half” concept. Nature Needs Half fully supports and empowers local people to continue to manage their lands sustainably, as they do throughout the world. (More than 1/3 of all remaining intact wild areas are stewarded by Indigenous and local people.)

Nature Needs Half envisions a world where nature is protected through a combination of strategies that include: official protected area categories, sustainably managed and restored lands, and sustainable and efficient cities. The good news is that even though only 17% of Earth’s land and 10% of Earth’s seas are protected in 2020, we still have a little over half of Earth’s natural landscapes that are intact. By leaving these undisturbed, we can easily achieve half in the next decade.

Read More:

Wyss Foundation Launches $1 Billion Campaign to Help Conserve 30% of the Planet by 2030