Former Nigerian President Obasanjo urges AU to commit to conservation targets

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the African Union (AU) to commit to more effective targets for environmental conservation, after the European Commission announced it had pledged to protect 30% of its land and sea areas by 2030.

“I believe that Africa can match this ambition too and must lead the world in protecting biodiversity. Our economies, our cultures, and our health depend on keeping nature intact, protecting wildlife, and preserving clean air and water,’ Mr Obasanjo said. 

It follows the release of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: bringing nature back into our lives, which contains within it a pledge to safeguard 30% of land and marine areas as a means of preventing the mass extinction of plants and animals, as well as mitigating the effects of runaway climate change. 

In a statement, the former Nigerian president praised the project and called on the AU to emulate its ambition and scope.

‘The European Commission has just announced its support for protecting at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030, and I hope that the African Union will adopt the same goal and help lead the effort to protect and restore nature around the world,” he said. 

The EU’s strategy aims to set an international precedent for other countries to emulate as well as paving the way for a global deal on conservation at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity COP15, expected to take place in Kunming, China in 2021.

Enric Sala, Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, said that by agreeing to this strategy, the EU had demonstrated its “global leadership to end the destruction of the natural world”. 

“In doing so, they are unleashing a powerful antidote to biodiversity loss, hunger, climate change and economic recessions--as well as the emergence of diseases like COVID-19,” he added. 

Scientists now estimate that at least one third of the planet’s total surface needs to be protected in order to address runaway extinctions, mitigate climate change, provide clean air and water, and support nature-dependent industries like forestry, agriculture and fishing.