After the Kunming-Montreal agreement, France expected on the protection of biodiversity
The United Nations Conference on Biodiversity in Montreal adopted an agreement in December 2022 which provides, among other things, for 30% of protected areas on land and at sea and a 50% reduction in the risk associated with pesticides.
AP - Martin Meissner
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
A few weeks after obtaining, in Montreal, an ambitious global agreement to protect biodiversity by 2030, Christophe Béchu, the French Minister for Ecological Transition, received all the actors mobilized during COP15: negotiators, companies, trade unions, NGOs.
The opportunity also to hear them also on the process which is now beginning: translating the international agreement into a clear roadmap at the French level.
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“There is a before and an after COP15. This COP15 cannot be to say: “We are already doing everything well in what was in the agreement”.
The Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, promises that France will be ambitious to better protect its natural areas.
Its national biodiversity strategy by 2030 is expected in the spring.
► To read also
:
COP15: a historic agreement on biodiversity adopted in Montreal
But the first signal sent worries the NGOs.
This is the very likely extension of the derogation that allows sugar beet growers to use bee-killing pesticides.
Jean-David Abel, from the France Nature Environnement association:
“We completely feel a shock of reality when we come to the domestic level.
France can be the bearer - it's true, we can recognize it - in international bodies, of fairly ambitious objectives.
And then, when we come back to the local level and we ask questions about subjects such as pesticides, such as species, such as the quality of management of protected areas - in which this ministry is in great difficulty - there is no one .
»
► To read also: France again postpones the ban on neonicotinoids in the beet industry
All ministries - including Agriculture and Finance - must feel concerned by the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal agreement, defends Véronique Andrieux, of the World Wide Fund for Nature:
"We need metrics, indicators dated, quantified, with a clear timetable for implementation, which act on all policies that destroy biodiversity, particularly in agriculture.
»
As for the networks of nature reserves throughout France, they are waiting for more resources, financial and human, to be able to increase in power.
► To listen also
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To the rescue of the wild vine in Île-de-France
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