Wildlife road kills ignored in the Global Biodiversity Framework

In the seventh article in the series ‘Wildlife road kills versus Vision Zero 2050’ freelance journalist Patrick Francis examines wildlife road kills monitoring and prevention strategies adopted in Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030 and if it reports these to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to which it is a signatory.

Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030, the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan has been updated following the Commonwealth of Australia’s adoption of the landmark 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Section J outlines signatories “responsibility and transparency”. Point 16 states:

“The successful implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework requires responsibility and transparency, which will be supported by effective mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and review, forming an agreed, synchronized and cyclical system.[1] This includes the following elements:

(a)National biodiversity strategies and action plans, revised or updated in alignment with the Framework and its goals and targets as the main vehicle for implementation of the Framework, including national targets communicated in a standardized format.

(b) National reports, including the headline and, as appropriate, other indicators in the monitoring framework of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework;

 (c) Global analysis of information in national biodiversity strategies and action plans, including national targets to assess the contribution towards the Framework”.

Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024–2030 states “the Commonwealth of Australia sets ambitious national targets to tackle the drivers of biodiversity decline, to protect and repair our precious places and put nature on a path to recovery. The strategy also includes 3 enablers of change that will support the transformational shift required to achieve the targets. The targets and enablers of change reflect a shared vision between all Australian jurisdictions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 putting nature on a path to recovery, meaning by 2050 we will be living in harmony with nature.

But Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030 ignores the vehicle collision threat to wildlife living in the Road Effect Zone embracing the country’s approximate 600,000 kilometres of regional, rural and remotes roads. It contains no monitoring data about annual wildlife vehicle collisions and wildlife road kills despite some relevant data collected by vehicle insurance companies, state police accidents reports and wildlife rescue NGOs. It contains no national strategies and targets to reduce wildlife road kills and possible local extinctions of endangered species. The published estimate of Australia’s national vehicle road kills is 10 million native animals per year (2020) and the number is increasing each year due to population increase, road infrastructure increase, vehicle registration increase, wildlife relocation due to housing developments and wildlife population increase due to a host of nature restoration programs across farming land.

The Strategy makes no mention of ‘wildlife vehicle collision’ and ‘wildlife road kill’. Yet the Strategy states “Australia will halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, putting nature on a path to recovery, meaning that by 2050 we will be living in harmony with nature. Australia’s nature, now and into the future, is healthy and resilient to threats, understood, and valued both in its own right and for its essential contribution to our health, wellbeing, prosperity and quality of life.”

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s has the same 2050 vision of “a world of living in harmony with nature where by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored. …And for the period up to 2030 to take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery”

Figure 1: The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030 both have similar Visions for 2050, a world and Australia “living in harmony with nature” and both ignore wildlife vehicle collisions and wildlife road kills as threats to nature and a source of disharmony. Sources: Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030; photos: Patrick Francis.

To achieve this the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has four long-term goals for the global 2050 Vision for biodiversity. Its Goal A to Protect and Restore states “The integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems are maintained, enhanced, or restored, substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050; Human induced extinction of known threatened species is halted, and, by 2050, the extinction rate and risk of all species are reduced tenfold and the abundance of native wild species is increased to healthy and resilient levels.”

The Global Biodiversity Framework also has 23 “action orientated global targets for urgent action over the decade to 2030” to enable the four goals to be achieved by 2050. One of these “Target 4: Halt Species Extinction, Protect Genetic Diversity, and Manage Human-Wildlife Conflicts”, could be anticipated to include the impact wildlife vehicles collisions have on native species populations, particularly endangered species.

Yet just as Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030 ignores the increasing vehicle collision threat to wildlife living in the Road Effect Zone, so does the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s Target 4.

Bruce Englefield (2020) summaries the importance for including wildlife vehicle collisions as an issue which requires global attention. “Many factors contribute to the increasing burden of WVC (Wildlife Vehicle Collisions). An increasing human population, and the concomitant expansion of urbanisation and subsequent increased travel for work and leisure significantly increase the number of vehicles on the roads. The US Census Bureau International Data Base suggests that the world human population has increased from an estimated 5,278,000,000 in 1990 to a predicted 7,585,000,000 in 2020 [2]. Vehicle numbers increased from 654,000,000 in 2005 to 947,000,000 in 2015 [3]. Infrastructure is required to service the needs of this increase in population and vehicle numbers. The world road network increased by 7% annually from an approximated 18,015,713 km in 2013 to 64,285,009 km in 2019. In developing countries, for example China and India, the total length of all public roads increased by 570,000 km and 926,455 km respectively from 2010 to 2015. Even in developed countries, the road networks are still increasing. For example, in Australia, the road network is increasing at approximately 2,000 kilometres per year. Land clearing and habitat destruction to build these roads as well as for industry, housing and farming causes loss of habitat and forces animals to relocate. Collectively these factors feed into an increasing number of WVC and hence animal and human death and injury.”

Road ecologist Darryl Jones (2022) simply states “The epitaph “roadkill” is brutally appropriate for an appalling, and global, phenomenon: wildlife slaughter by vehicle”.

In the 19 December 2022 Montreal document the Conference of the Parties to the Convention “Requests the Executive Secretary to conduct a strategic review and analysis of the programmes of work of the Convention in the context of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to facilitate its implementation, and, on the basis of this analysis, to prepare draft updates of these programmes of work for consideration by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice and by the Subsidiary Body on Implementation, as appropriate”.

The Executive Secretary needs to answer two questions:

Firstly, how can the Global Biodiversity Framework’s Goal A be achieved while wildlife vehicle collisions and subsequent wildlife road kills are ignored in the action orientated global Target 4 which aims to “manage human-wildlife conflicts” over the decade to 2030?

Secondly, is the Executive Secretary going to include a review of the Framework’s Strategy 4 before the next COP to include how each signatory nation monitors its wildlife vehicle collisions and wildlife road kills and details their strategies to reduce them by 2030?

Figure 2: Australia’s Strategy for Nature goals and objectives align with many Global Biodiversity Framework targets and UN Sustainable Development Goals but all ignore wildlife vehicle collisions and wildlife road kills as a threat to species populations, natural behaviours and welfare. Source: Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030.

Author’s recommendation:

The Commonwealth of Australia as a signatory to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework put a request to the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) before COP 30 in Brazil for either:

* A revision of the Framework’s “Target 4: Halt Species Extinction, Protect Genetic Diversity, and Manage Human-Wildlife Conflicts” to include wildlife vehicle collisions as a threat to species populations, natural behaviours and welfare, and require signatory countries to report annually on progress made to reduce and eliminate this threat.

* Include a new Target (Target 24) into the Framework that deals specifically with global wildlife vehicle collisions as a threat to species populations, natural behaviours and welfare and require signatory countries to report annually on progress made to reduce and eliminate this threat.

References:

“Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” decision adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity Montreal Canada 19 December 2022.

“Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024 – 2030: Commonwealth of Australia 2024.

“Influences on and consequences of wildlife vehicle collisions and roadkill

in Australia” Ph D thesisbyBruce Englefield MSc School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney 12/08/2020

“A review of roadkill rescue: who cares for the mental, physical and financial welfare of Australian wildlife carers?” Bruce Englefield, Melissa Starling and Paul McGreevy Wildlife Research, 2018, 45, 103–118

“A Clouded Leopard in the Middle of the Road – New Thinking about Roads, People and Wildlife” by Darryl Jones, Cornell University Press 2022