Home to over 95 mammal and 600 bird species, Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) is being dramatically altered by invasive plant species whose arrival is being supercharged by increasing temperatures. Once a healthy savannah grassland, the park is rapidly transforming into a dense, thorny scrubland. Most problematic among these invasive species is dichrostachys cinerea, commonly known as sicklebush.

Each year, on International Day for Biological Diversity, we are called upon to reexamine our relationship with the natural world and recommit to respecting and protecting it.

This year, the focus is on the linkages between the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the goals and targets of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) as two universal agendas that must be pursued in tandem. The call to action is to accelerate action on the SDGs and the GBF in the last 5 years before the agreed implementation period expires.

The threat of IAS was last highlighted in 2009 as an issue of concern and theme for the International Day for Biological Diversity. This threat continues to grow, and, according to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-policy platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, it is now one of the five major drivers of biodiversity loss.

According to the report, IAS are the sole driver in 16% of documented global extinctions, and have contributed, alone or alongside other drivers, to 60% of all recorded global extinctions. The scale and severity of the problem helped ensure that minimizing the spread and impact of IAS is enshrined as a core target for the GBF (Target 6)

Besides the threat they pose to wildlife, IAS impose enormous costs on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and other natural resource-based sectors and human health. These costs have been estimated at more than USD 423 billion per year—an amount scientists believe has quadrupled every decade since 1970. Without concerted effort, and with the increased movement of people and goods brought about by globalization, as well as the compounding effects of climate change and habitat degradation, the number of IAS and their impacts are projected to increase.

Removal Brings Relief, but at a Price

The most economical way to manage IAS is through prevention, along with early detection and rapid response (EDRR). These two approaches are much more effective than trying to manage a widespread infestation. What is now happening in QENP is proof of this.

Sicklebush has a wide natural distribution, ranging from southern and tropical Africa to India, though its true native range is still disputed. What is true for QENP is that while sicklebush has always existed in the park, its rapid spread, driven by drought conditions and higher temperatures, has meant that it now covers almost 50% of the park, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). This has created impenetrable thickets that have lowered the park's carrying capacity for grazing wildlife species, restricted wildlife movement, and blocked access to water points. Animals, both prey and predators, are now leaving QENP to seek food and water in the neighbouring communities, exacerbating human–wildlife conflict in the area, affecting the lives, livelihoods, food security, and well-being of many already-vulnerable people living in and around the protected area. This is also affecting the tourism industry—a significant source of revenue for the country and the local communities—as those animals remaining in the park are increasingly difficult to see.

Under the CAPA Initiative, IISD and the Worldwide Fund for Nature have worked with local communities to clear sicklebush from over 200 hectares in strategically important areas in QENP, providing urgent relief to wildlife that could no longer access critical grazing grounds and watering points. The work made an impact quickly, but it is just a drop in the ocean given the scale of the problem. A total of 110,000 hectares of the park are estimated to be impacted by sicklebush and other IAS, according to the UWA.

The cost of removing these invasive plants is high; it costs roughly USD 1,120 to clear 1 hectare of sicklebush manually. With the affected area totalling close to 110,000 hectares, roughly USD 124 million would be needed to fully eradicate the problem, and this would only cover the initial removal. To achieve effective results, more funding would be needed for follow-up management action to eliminate resprouts. UWA had attempted to eliminate and control sicklebush in QENP and other protected areas across the country through mechanical removal, but the use of machinery, while less expensive, did not adequately remove the root structure of the plant and catalyzed massive sprouting through remnant root systems, as well as leaving soils over-compacted, which hindered natural regeneration.

Investing in Early Detection

A similar trend of overly costly removal of IAS is observed in most cases where attempts are made to eradicate IAS after it has spread, making investment in EDRR by far the best way forward. This is even more important now, with more than 1 million animal and plant species considered to be threatened with extinction and given the stark shortfall in global conservation funding [paywall] revealed last year at the 16th United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia. Tight budgets mean that conservation decision-makers must identify and prioritize those management strategies and investments in critical ecosystems that are most likely to achieve better results per dollar invested for species’ recovery and conservation.

Addressing tomorrow’s IAS invasions must begin today, with smart investments in EDRR in the form of surveillance systems to detect invaders in areas at high risk or of high biodiversity value, and aggressive quarantine and eradication techniques to eliminate potential IAS from specific locations before they spread and cause harm. Given the current climate change context, it will also be essential to recognize the interactions between IAS and climate change so that the appropriate forward-looking adaptation management strategies can be considered and adopted.

In QENP, the removal of invasive species had an immediate, localized impact. Within a day of the clearance work being completed, antelope and buffalo were once again grazing in these areas, and elephants were drinking from the Kazinga Channel; their path was no longer blocked by thorny scrub. Native plants are regenerating because they have more room. The ecosystem, including its wildlife, can recover; we just need to make the right decisions for its future.  

The Rwenzori Mountains loom large over the surrounding scenery in southwestern Uganda. Here, snowmelt and rainwaters flow through alpine meadows and forests of otherworldly flora, including giant lobelia and heather taller than a person, to provide the source waters of the Nile. Moving south, the lakes, rivers, and grasslands of Queen Elizabeth National Park are home to not only elephants, buffalo, and hippopotami but also vast herds of kob—and the tree-climbing lions that prey on them.

Standing within these beautiful settings, you could be forgiven for thinking that nature is thriving. However, these exceptional places, inscribed as part of our collective natural heritage by UNESCO, are increasingly islands of ecosystem health in fragmented landscapes and seascapes beset by outside pressures.

The Sixth Extinction

It is a well-known story, and the headlines are often dire. Rates of species extinction and ecosystem degradation are accelerating; according to the 2019 Global Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 1 million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades, unless urgent, transformative action is taken. Abundance has plummeted for many of those species not yet gone; WWF’s 2022 Living Planet Report notes an average decline of 69% in the relative abundance of monitored wildlife populations around the world between 1970 and 2018. The scale of the problem is so large that it is now commonly referred to as the sixth extinction: the loss of an unusually large number of species in a short time, driven by human activities.  

Compounding Crises

IPBES cites five anthropogenic factors as key drivers of this crisis: land- and sea-use change; direct exploitation of natural resources; climate change; pollution; and invasive species.

Nature has a foundational role in global health, food systems, livelihoods, climate adaptation, economies, and security. Thus, the acceleration of nature loss, when considered in the context of rising demands from growing populations for both ecosystem services and natural resources, means that avoiding further degradation or loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services should be an increasingly important consideration for governments, communities, and the private sector.

This crisis is unfolding in the context of rising global temperatures. The climate crisis is having a significant impact on the natural world. While land- and sea-use changes are currently the greatest drivers of nature loss, a failure to limit planetary warming to 1.5°C will result in climate change becoming the dominant cause of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation in the coming decades.

Climate change is disrupting natural feedback loops and altering the habitats and ranges of various fauna and flora. Its impacts also undermine the delivery of ecosystem services, harming human lives and livelihoods and compromising efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger and provide safe water for billions of people. Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, alongside the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, will depend on a coordinated response to these deeply connected emergencies.

How Can Nature-based Solutions Build Climate Change Resilience?

But while climate change and biodiversity loss often act to reinforce one another, so do effective climate change adaptation and nature protection. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have emerged as an integrated concept beyond climate change adaptation and traditional conservation. NbS may have the potential to tackle multiple societal challenges, such as protecting, managing, and restoring biodiversity and ecosystems. Their services are increasingly seen as an effective way to address some of the shared root causes and impacts of the biodiversity and climate crises.

In Belize, Fiji, and the Greater Virunga and Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa, NbS are being rolled out to increase the resilience of both communities and ecosystems to climate change. Through the Climate Adaptation and Protected Areas (CAPA) Initiative, IISD is working with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and local partners and communities within these spaces to conserve, protect, restore, and sustainably manage protected areas.

More than 50 km from the mainland of Belize, Glover’s Reef atoll lies just inches above the deep blue waters of the western Caribbean. Glover’s is a critical link in a chain of reefs and islands that form the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere. Here, IISD and the Wildlife Conservation Society are working to strengthen the reef's health and its ability to support local livelihoods, remain a suitable habitat for marine species, and provide coastal protections against extreme weather events.

Half a world away, in southwestern Uganda, lies what is arguably Africa’s most biodiverse landscape. The Greater Virunga Landscape stretches along the shared borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—a mosaic of mountains, savannas, rivers, lakes, swamps, tropical rainforests, and volcanoes. Here, conservation interventions implemented by the World Wide Fund for Nature and partners focused on reforestation, invasive species removal, land restoration, and nature-based livelihoods will help build the resilience of three national parks (Rwenzori Mountains, Queen Elizabeth, and Bwindi Impenetrable) and the communities that surround them to rising temperatures, increased flood risk, landslides, and erosion. Even more work is happening under the project in the KAZA landscape and in Fiji to support reforestation, restock wildlife, promote sustainable fisheries, and improve flood mitigation, among other activities.

The threats facing these ecosystems—and, by extension, the conservation practitioners that manage and support them; the communities that sustain and depend on them; the flora and fauna that make them indispensable—can often seem insurmountable. But there is hope. CAPA is one small part of a growing movement of projects, partnerships, and approaches using NbS to simultaneously address these two existential emergencies. Scaling up this work to match the urgency and reach of the crises will be a challenge, but it is a challenge we must embrace.

To learn more about the CAPA Initiative, please visit www.iisd.org/capa.

September 8, LUSAKA—The three-year Climate Adaptation and Protected Areas (CAPA) initiative, launching today in Zambia’s capital, will use nature-based solutions to support local communities in adapting to climate change while safeguarding critical ecosystems in and around protected areas in the Kavango-Zambezi and Greater Virunga landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Belize and Fiji.

“CAPA will bridge the gap between protected areas management and climate change adaptation planning, while involving women and marginalized groups at all stages to ensure an inclusive approach,” said Anne Hammill, Associate Vice President, Resilience, at IISD.

Through the CAPA initiative, IISD, along with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), with support from Global Affairs Canada, will work with local communities, traditionally marginalized groups, women, and national and local authorities to design and implement concrete gender-responsive, conflict-sensitive, nature-based solutions for adaptation that can be implemented right away.

WWF Zambia Country Director, Nachilala Nkombo, says “CAPA represents a valuable opportunity to enhance climate change adaptation measures in the Kavango-Zambezi landscapes. By working closely with local communities, we can develop solutions that not only address climate change impacts but also empower communities to actively participate in safeguarding Zambia’s natural heritage.”

CAPA will implement a wide range of activities in each site to achieve its objectives, such as

• establishing native tree nurseries to support reforestation efforts, restocking community game ranches with native wildlife to restore ecological balance, and initiating the establishment of community forests in Zambia; 
• supporting restoration activities of agricultural lands adjacent to protected areas, through soil and water conservation, in Uganda; 
• promoting sustainable fisheries and establishing marine protected areas while supporting the development of climate-resilient alternative livelihood options in two communities in Fiji;
• establishing financial protections for marine reserves in the event of natural hazards in Belize.

“Through the CAPA initiative, Canada reaffirms its commitment to climate action and supporting sustainable development in international contexts,” said Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s Minister of International Development, at today’s launch event. “We are proud to partner with organizations like IISD, WWF, and WCS in implementing gender-responsive approaches that ensure inclusive and equitable outcomes for all.”

“CAPA aligns with Zambia’s commitment to sustainable tourism development and the conservation of our natural resources,” said Honourable Rodney Sikumba, Zambia’s Minister of Tourism. “By establishing community forests and engaging with traditionally marginalized groups, we can ensure that local communities are at the forefront to drive the climate adaptation agenda, fostering long-term resilience in line with our global goals on adaptation commitments.”

Media Contacts

For further information or interview requests, please contact:

Hazel Zulu

Senior Liaison Officer, Canadian High Commission

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: +260 979 473 284                                   

Benetria Milambo

Communications Coordinator, WWF Zambia

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: +260 772 099 733

Marie Royer

Communications Officer, IISD

Email: [email protected]

National oil companies (NOCs) are key players in the global oil and gas industry—they produce half of the world’s oil and gas, and invest 40% of capital into the sector. But policy-makers and climate activists alike often overlook NOCs’ role in global efforts to address climate change. Omission of NOCs from climate strategies will significantly hamper governments’ attempts to meet global climate goals, and NOCs—along with the countries that depend on their revenues—could be left behind.

On April 21, the National Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and IISD co-hosted the first in a series of webinars aiming to fill this gap. Three key lessons emerged:

1. Political will is crucial. Governments must drive the energy transition. This is valid for both producer country governments, which should direct their NOCs in line with national strategic and political priorities, and wealthy consumer country governments, which must provide climate finance to enable developing and emerging producer countries to overcome the serious challenges of transition.
    
2. Tunnel vision is deadly. NOCs can’t continue on the costly assumption the oil market won’t change. Climate advocates must increasingly consider the developmental challenges of producer countries and the needs, and potential roles, of NOCs.
    
3. Economic diversification is key. Oil- and gas-producing countries have struggled with diversification for decades. Solving this is even more urgent now as producer countries must start actively investing in the long-term future. New producers should avoid making investments from the beginning that lock the country into a high-carbon pathway.

No more business as usual

Making incremental reductions in emissions compared to a business-as-usual baseline is no longer enough to mitigate the effects of climate change. This is because of the rapid and fundamental transformation in the way we produce and consume energy.

This change creates a challenge for companies whose core business is extraction of oil and gas, and especially for governments heavily dependent on revenues from NOCs.

Making incremental reductions in emissions is no longer enough to mitigate the effects of climate change.

These companies and governments should consider any new oil and gas investments in light of the significant uncertainty about future demand for their products and the economic returns they will generate, as well as their impact on climate change targets. Meanwhile, the status quo approach in many countries—whereby NOCs reinvest most of their oil revenues straight back into the sector—poses a growing risk to efforts to move away from fossil fuels.

Global oil production would have to decline by 4% every year from 2020 to 2030 to be consistent with a 1.5°C pathway, according to the Production Gap Report. Yet current government plans and projections indicate an average 2% annual increase. This raises the question: what is the role for NOCs in a world of climate change adaptation and declining oil?

Experts weigh-in

Executives from two NOCs, Colombia’s Ecopetrol and Uganda’s UNOC, joined our event to share their approaches to energy transition. Valérie Marcel of Chatham House, one of the world’s leading experts on NOCs, also contributed.

Juan Manuel Rojas shared Ecopetrol’s climate strategy, based on four pillars. While still focused on oil and gas, Ecopetrol aims to diversify its business into other sources of energy. The company bid for 51% of ISA, the state electricity grid operator. While many NOCs aim to reduce their direct operational emissions—so-called scopes 1 and 2—Ecopetrol’s energy transition strategy also targets scope 3, the indirect emissions that occur in its products’ value chain. The company aims to reduce emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 50% by 2050.

Asked to what extent these changes are driven by investors (88.5% of the company is state-owned and the rest is held by private investors), Rojas said often they are skeptical of the importance of an energy transition. From a financial perspective, many investors prefer their holdings to focus on one business area: if they want more electricity or more renewables, they would make those choices themselves. This creates a key tension in NOCs’ diversification efforts.

NOCs have two purposes: to deliver revenues to governments and to meet energy demand in their countries.

Peter Muliisa of UNOC shared Uganda’s challenges as new petroleum producer and a country with pressing socio-economic development needs. Like other countries in Africa, Uganda is highly vulnerable to climate change, and many officials and citizens see oil revenue as a means to help the country cope. However, with the global energy transition underway, UNOC has expressed a desire to develop a clear strategy on what the company needs to do to avoid exacerbating the effects of climate change on Uganda. Muliisa shared that, as a first step, early discussions are under way on how to restructure UNOC as an energy company rather than an oil company, ensuring Ugandans increasingly gain access to clean energy.

However, the government’s green light for construction of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, which will carry Uganda’s oil to the Tanzanian coast, raises the question of potentially stranded assets. Muliisa explained that Ugandan officials hope to export oil through the pipeline before energy demand significantly shifts to renewables, but that the energy transition may affect longer-term production in the country.

Valérie Marcel, drawing also on the experience of these two companies, observed that NOCs have two purposes: to deliver revenues to governments and to meet energy demand in their countries (including often non-commercially). While clean energy is generally profitable, it does not create economic rents in the way oil does, which raises challenges for the countries’ economic strategies and government revenues. The second part of NOCs’ mandate could point to a role for NOCs in supplying renewable energy domestically. However, while NOCs can focus on reducing their costs or operational emissions, transitioning to renewable energy requires clear direction from their governments and consistent development strategies and climate policies, especially given the political consequences of lost economic rents.

Finally, Marcel said, the transition will affect different types of NOCs variously: high-cost versus low-cost, exporting versus importing, gas-focused versus oil-focused. Will it be easier for NOCs in new producing countries to transition than for established producers? In some ways yes, she said, as they are not yet locked into an oil development pathway. However, these producers often lack the financial resources needed for such a transition.

Our discussion series aims to increase learning between experts in the extractives governance and climate change fields, who have too often worked in silos. Our next event, on May 27, will explore whether NOCs should get directly involved in renewable energy investment and economic diversification.

Register now.

Patrick Heller is an advisor at NRGI and a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, University of California, Berkeley. Greg Muttitt is senior policy advisor for energy supply at IISD.