‘Living in harmony with nature’? Outcomes of the 2010 Nagoya Conference of the Convention on Biological Diversity

The decline of biological diversity continues at speed and the consequent degradation of habitats and ecosystem structures, coupled with climate change, may constitute one of the greatest challenges that human civilisation has ever faced. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was created to facilitate the reversing of biodiversity loss. Although a hard convention, its strategy has been to rely primarily on non-obligatory instruments in the form of targets to achieve its objectives. The CBD’s 2010 targets were not achieved. In November 2010 in Nagoya the 10th conference of its parties was held and, among other outputs, new targets were agreed and one new hard law protocol was finalised. This article examines these principal outputs and evaluates their capacity to fulfil the new CBD vision: ‘Living in Harmony with Nature’.