A third of the planet's species need to be protected by 2030 as Earth enters its sixth mass extinction, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) said in a draft plan released last week that was designed to save the planet's remaining wildlife, CNN reported.
In 2019, the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that one million of Earth's eight million species were threatened with extinction due to humans.
According to UNCBD, the world's population, growth, expected to reach 8.6 billion by the end of the decade, may have severe "implications for the demand for resources, including food, infrastructure and land use."
The agency's proposed plan includes ensuring the legality of the trade of all wild species, as well as its sustainability to economic sectors and individual consumption.
UNCBD urged the world's countries to "retain and restore freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, increasing by at least [50%] the land and sea area under comprehensive spatial planning addressing land/sea use change, achieving by 2030 a net increase in area, connectivity and integrity and retaining existing intact areas and wilderness."
It also urged to "protect sites of particular importance for biodiversity and other effective area-based conservation measures," and "control all pathways for the introduction of invasive alien species."
Among the planet's most endangered species are Amur leopards, Bengal tigers, gorillas, sea turtles, orangutans and elephants – all of which may all go extinct in the wild in our lifetime.
During Australia's raging bushfires, more than a billion animals have died and thousands are currently at risk. It is not known yet whether some of the continent's most endangered species with hundreds estimated to exist before the fire have survived.
Last week, the country's government decided to slaughter 10,000 camels by shooting them from the air, since the animal, which is considered an invasive species, was drinking the state's fresh water, worsening the conditions of the local endangered species during the fatal heat wave.
Held in Kunming, China, the convention also agreed that one of the steps toward the conservation of Earth's species was empowering indigenous communities.
"Biodiversity, and the benefits it provides, is fundamental to human well-being and a healthy planet," UNCBD said. "Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide and this decline is projected to continue or worsen under business-as-usual scenarios," it added.
"The post-2020 global biodiversity framework builds on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and sets out an ambitious plan to implement broad-based action to bring about a transformation in society’s relationship with biodiversity and to ensure that, by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled."