19 Jan 2023

Written by Francis Vorhies, AWEI Director, WildCRU Research Visitor, IUCN SULi Member

The use of terms is important in international policy. Words attempt to shape a common understanding of the challenges and responses set out in multilateral agreements. A most interesting outcome of the recent 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) is the return of the term wild – notably in the new Global Biodiversity Framework in which it appears seven times. 

To put this into historical context, before the launch of the CBD in 1992, wild was much more prominent in global policy. In 1980, IUCN UNEP, and WWF with FAO and UNESCO released the World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development. In this document, the term wild – on its own or in words such as wildlife or wilderness – shows up more than 90 times. For example, the third conservation objective set out in the Strategy reads as follows:

…to ensure the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems (notably fish and other wildlife, forests and grazing lands), which support millions of rural communities as well as major industries…

A decade later in 1991, IUCN, UNEP, and WWF now with ADB, FAO, IIED, ILO, UNDP, UNESCO, World Bank, WHO, WMO, and WRI released Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living. The updated Strategy aimed to “re-state current thinking about conservation and development” and included the term wild more than 70 times. For example, it states:

Those that successfully conserve wildlife stocks should be enabled to export the sustainable surplus and to receive the revenues earned.

One year later, however, in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity was launched at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development and the term wild disappeared. It is only used three times – twice in an annex and once in the following definition:

‘Country providing genetic resources' means the country supplying genetic resources collected from in-situ sources, including populations of both wild and domesticated species…

Thirty years after the publication of the World Conservation Strategy, in 2010, CBD COP10 agreed on a new Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and Aichi Targets with only one mention of wild. Like the convention text, the term is used in the context of genetic resources:

Target 13 …the genetic diversity of cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and of wild relatives…

There is no reference to wild in the CBD text or the Aichi Target regarding the first two objectives of the CBD, i.e., to conserve biodiversity and to sustainably use its components. Over the next decade wild, however, begins to appear in CBD decisions, primarily due to the work of the Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management. This leads to 7 mentions in the new Global Biodiversity Framework as follows in one goal and three targets:

Goal A … by 2050… the abundance of native wild species is increased to healthy and resilient levels; … genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species is maintained…

Target 4 … maintain and restore the genetic diversity within and between populations of native, wild and domesticated species… effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to minimize human-wildlife conflict…

Target 5 Ensure that the use, harvesting and trade of wild species is sustainable, safe and legal…

Target 9 Ensure that the management and use of wild species are sustainable, thereby providing social, economic and environmental benefits for people…

The focus on wild with respect to genetic diversity continues, but now there is also an emphasis on increasing wildlife populations, managing human-wildlife interactions, and ensuring that wildlife use is sustainable. 

In another decision on Sustainable Wildlife Management, the term wild appears more than 20 times. For example:

Recognizing the progress made on the consideration of the voluntary guidance for a sustainable wild meat sector in the tropics and the sub-tropics the progress made on the consideration of the voluntary guidance for a sustainable wild meat sector in the tropics and the sub-tropics…

Requests the Executive Secretary, in consultation with Parties, other Governments, indigenous peoples and local communities… (c) To collaborate with all relevant actors and stakeholders in order to promote the mainstreaming of the sustainable use of biodiversity, in particular that of wild species, into all relevant sectors…

CBD COP 15 has started to rewild global biodiversity policy. This is an excellent development with a new focus on conserving the ‘wildness’ of the components of biodiversity – ecosystems, species, and genetic resources. Further, COP15 outcomes includes a focus on promoting the mainstreaming of the sustainable use of wild species. From the perspective of the African Wildlife Economy Institute, COP15 could lead to a common understanding of sustainable wildlife use as an effective area-based conservation measure – rewilding landscapes through rewilding use.