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HWC Indicator Framework Development
In December 2022, the Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed on a historic package of measures deemed critical to addressing the dangerous loss of biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems by adopting the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (KMGBF). The Framework includes four goals and 23 targets for achievement by 2030.
For the first time, human-widllife conflict has been included explicitly in an international UN treaty. This is a crucially important milestone for human-wildlife conflict, as it obligates the 196 Parties to the CBD to address HWC in national legislation and policy.
To monitor progress towards the targets, the Parties also adopted the Monitoring Framework that includes a set of indicators for each target that are to be discussed and further developed before COP16. In the Monitoring Framework, the indicator for HWC is included as a component indicator, but an effective way to measure the progress towards the HWC part of the target is currently lacking.
As the proposed institution for coordinating the HWC indicator framework, the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group is facilitating the indicator rollout process to ensure that there is adequate measurement of progress towards this part of Target 4.
The rollout will start with a situational analysis and a formation of a working group, made of technical experts and interested Parties. The members of the Working Group will be asked to join a series of workshops dedicated to the development of the framework for the HWC Indicator. The workshops will be held online and are likely to be limited to six meetings over a period of 12 months, starting in September 2023.
Prior to COP15, the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group organised the first online technical workshops on 8 June 2022, which included members of the HWCCSG and colleagues from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), WWF, as well as the CBD Secretariat and OEWG, UNEP-WCMC and several Parties (including Angola, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda, UK), where participants had a chance to discuss metrics for the indicator. A summary of the discussions can be found here.