After about two weeks of negotiations, participants at the World Nature Summit in Montreal, Canada, today agreed on a final declaration. Among other things, the 196 states have set a goal to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and sea areas by 2030.
The draft had already been presented yesterday by the president of the Chinese conference. The conservation organization WWF praised the draft of a new agreement. The text still has “major gaps”, but “measured against the difficult negotiations” of recent weeks, it is “a surprisingly promising interim result”, according to WWF Germany.
Greenpeace, on the other hand, criticized the draft as “weak” and a “farce”, a delegation of young participants initially criticized the document’s “lack of ambition”.