Wild NYC - Biodiversity

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, this month's edition of Wild NYC, our year-long exploration once a month, of our connection to the natural world in the New York City area. Today, biodiversity with or without the United States. Did you know that there's a global biodiversity treaty and only two global locations have refused to sign on? You guessed it, the United States is one. We'll explain why. The other non-signatory is Vatican City. Maybe we'll be able to find out why that is from our guests. We're doing this today because as we speak in the nation of Armenia, representatives from around the world are gathering for United Nations Biodiversity Summit. It's hardly making news in this country, but you know that environmental issues are among our things here, and we thought you might appreciate it. Urban botanist and ecologist Marielle Anzelone is here as she is each month in this series. It was her idea. Today she's joined by Monica Medina, podcast host for Scientista, whose mission is to empower current and future women leaders in science and other fields. Monica is known as a rock star in this field. She was Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Biden administration, and was the first US. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources at the US. State Department. So welcome back, Marielle. It's always great. And Monica, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Monica Medina (1:43)

Thank you so much for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here today.

Brian Lehrer (1:47)

So Marielle, maybe this is obvious, but what does the word biodiversity actually mean?

Marielle Anzelone (1:53)

Oh, well, biodiversity is a shortening of biological diversity, and it's just the sense that there are these different levels at which life exists on the planet. So typically, we think about it from a species level, right? There's different, you know, maple trees, oak trees, they're different species, but also there's different habitats and different genetic levels. So it's looking at the levels of life across the board, across the planet.

Brian Lehrer (2:21)

And Monica, what is this Biodiversity Treaty that most of our listeners probably never heard of, that most of the nations of the world have signed and are meeting about this week?

Monica Medina (2:31)

Yes, it's wonderful to be here and thank you so much for talking about global biodiversity because animals and plants and nature don't know our geographic boundaries. And that's one of the reasons why it's so important that we work together, everyone around the planet, to support biodiversity and to protect biodiversity and to protect the natural ecosystems that we all rely on, whether it's for our economy or for our well-being, we really need our planet to function. And the whole point of this treaty is to make sure that it does. And yes, the US is really the only country that is not a member. The Holy See, the Vatican, is an advisor and an observer of the treaty, which is pretty typical for them. And no one's going to question the Pope and the Catholic Church's dedication to conservation and protecting Eden here on Earth. So I think it's a shame that the US is really the only country to have never signed this treaty. And we did participate in the negotiation of it. We actually signed it, but we never ratified it. And you know, it's hard to ratify a treaty here. It takes two-thirds of our US. Senate, and it's very difficult to get that two-thirds agreement on anything international, especially now. But that doesn't mean this treaty isn't important to many US organizations and to many US citizens who work hard on conservation here at home and around the world every single day. Organizations from the Wildlife Conservation Society based there in New York, to Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, and so many Americans who are working on the ground all around the world to improve conservation and biodiversity outcomes everywhere. And one thing I will say that I'm especially proud of is that in, in at least in the Biden administration, now much of this funding, most all of it in fact has been cut. But until now, the US had been a large donor to biodiversity conservation through something called the Global Environment Facility, which was created at the same time that this treaty was agreed. And we were the largest donor for nature. And that made a huge difference in 2022 when the world adopted something called the Kung Ming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which is a large, long name representing the fact that China and the countries of China and Canada worked as leaders to get all the world to agree on this new update to the original treaty.