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Uganda and other countries are running out of time regarding the rampant loss of biodiversity, according to the executive director of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).

However, Uganda has started implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which aims to reduce the erosion of biodiversity and restore degraded areas, according to NEMA executive director Dr Barirega Akankwasah.

Biodiversity refers to the different kinds of life in an area — the variety of animals, plants, fungi and even microorganisms such as bacteria that make up the natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

"In such times when the country is equally alarmed by the continued loss of biodiversity (with forest cover reducing from 24% in 1990 to only 9.5% in 2015 and wetland cover reducing from 15.6% in 1994 to only 8.9% in 2019) and the threat that this poses to nature and human well-being, the GBF, which was adopted in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022, is timely," he said.

Barirega was speaking on Tuesday, August 22, 2023, during the launch of the partnership for biodiversity at Imperial Royale in Kampala.

"The implementation of GBF will, however, require participation at all levels of government and in the whole of society, and this is why we are having this meeting," he said.

According to him, NEMA’s strong partnerships have strengthened its domestication and implementation of Uganda’s obligations under biodiversity conventions and biodiversity-related conventions.

Uganda has formed a partnership to protect biodiversity, which is part of the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), according to Akankwasah.

"I thank UNEP/Global Environment Facility and the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry for supporting the Government of Uganda to embark on processes to align the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) II (2015–2015) to the GBF, which among others include this meeting," he said.

Section 59 of the National Environment Act 2019 requires NEMA to develop national strategies, plans and programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the country.

The review and alignment of NBSAP to the GBF is not only a global obligation, but also a statutory requirement that NEMA has to undertake.

The GBF has a total of 23 global targets that NEMA will co-ordinate and guide stakeholders to align their national biodiversity strategies and action plans with to GBF's global targets.

GBF covers a broad range of targets, cutting across many multi-lateral environmental agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Ramsar Convention, the Convention on Migratory Species, and Chemical Conventions, among others.

The GBF targets include targets on planning to address land use change, restoration of degraded ecosystems, protected areas, preventing extinction of species, sustainable use of species, invasive alien species, pollution, climate change, sustainable management of forests, fisheries, and agro-biodiversity, and green spaces in urban and densely populated areas. 

The framework also aims at mainstreaming: access to genetic resources and benefit sharing; the role of the private sector in biodiversity conservation; sustainable consumption; biotechnology; phasing out or reforming incentives, including subsidies, harmful to biodiversity; resource mobilisation; capacity building and technology transfer; information and knowledge management; gender; indigenous peoples; and local communities.