Island Biodiversity
- Earth’s 175,000 islands are home to more than 600 million inhabitants
- Islands and their oceans represent one sixth of Earth’s total area
- Islands support many of the most unique and isolated natural systems including:
- more than half the world’s marine biodiversity
- more than half the world’s marine biodiversity
- 7 of the world’s 10 coral reef hotspots and
- 10 of the 34 richest areas of biodiversity in the world
- 64% of recorded extinctions are on islands
- Over two thirds of the world’s countries include island
Islands are unique, diverse and vulnerable. They are important early indicators of the common challenges facing our global community. Island communities feel the impacts from natural disasters, climate change, overconsumption and other global changes more intensely, as these changes jeopardize their food, water, health and economic security. Today, many islands are demonstrating global leadership and rapid progress in addressing these challenges and inspiring others around the world.
Programme of Work on Island Biodiversity
To significantly reduce the loss biodiversity on islands, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the programme of work on island biodiversity (PoWIB) at the eight meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-8) in 2006 (decision viii/1). The PoWIB applies to island Parties and Parties with islands and has been critical to bringing global attention to the specific challenges and vulnerabilities faced by islands, particularly Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It is based on the reality that healthy ecosystems underpin sustainable livelihoods, health and poverty eradication.
The Partnership responds directly to paragraph 16 of decision VIII/1, which “encourages Parties to establish national, sub-regional, regional and international island partnerships that bring Governments and civil society organizations together to increase political, financial and technical support to accelerate the implementation of the programme of work on island biodiversity”.
The Partnership has supported the implementation of the Convention by supporting the CBD Secretariat to coordinate successful collaboration between the parties to showcase their biodiversity achievements, disseminate new projects and initiatives, and highlight the ongoing vulnerabilities and challenges. In 2008, during CBD COP-8 the Partnership was recognized as one of the mechanisms to implement the island biodiversity programme of work (decision ix/21)
