Will new initiatives succeed in protecting Japan's biodiversity?

The UN Biodiversity COP15 meeting is currently underway in Montreal, Canada, after a two-year delay due to the pandemic. Discussions are underway on how to protect biodiversity, with the aim of adopting a new international target for countries to work toward by 2030.

The Japanese archipelago, with its long, undulating terrain from north to south and wide range of climates, is a land of rich variety of living creatures and ecosystems on a global scale. But Japan has also been identified as one of the world's 36 biodiversity hotspots, an area where rich biodiversity is in danger of destruction. Japan's high population density is one of the main reasons why the country's ecosystems are strongly exposed to the negative effects of human activities.

Next year, the Japanese government will publish its National Biodiversity Strategy for the coming decade. It is expected to align with international trends and promote stronger collaboration between the public, private and academic sectors. The UN has found that not a single one of the Aichi Targets, designed to protect biodiversity, has been fully achieved.

It remains to be seen whether Japan's new plan will be any more effective. This year, Japan's Ministry of the Environment launched the 30by30 Alliance for Biodiversity, a voluntary organization with private companies and non-profit organizations. The alliance is accelerating efforts to conserve or protect at least 30% of Japan’s land and sea area by 2030.

Corporate initiatives are a crucial element of the effort to protect Japan's biodiversity. Since 2001, Sekisui House, a world-leading residential developer, has been promoting ecosystem-friendly garden and community development through the ‘Gohon no Ki’ (Five Trees) project, in which trees are planted in residential areas throughout Japan. The project aims to plant mainly native tree species in each area, increasing its biodiversity. The company’s goal is for these gardens to create green networks in urban residential areas, linking them to local nature and forming an urban ecosystem network.

A total of 17.09 million trees have been planted as a part of this project over the past 20 years. The company has also succeeded in quantifying the effectiveness of these trees in preserving biodiversity, using big data on the number of trees, tree species, location data, and ecosystems.

As its next initiative, Sekisui House has launched a groundbreaking project to quantify biodiversity in corporate green spaces such as factories and building development sites. Using a method jointly developed with the University of the Ryukyus, the project will identify and visualize which birds, butterflies, and other native species inhabit each type of tree. This will make it possible to measure the extent to which corporate-owned land contributes to biodiversity, and is expected to lead to increased property values in the future.

Change Our Next Decade (COND), a youth organization working to raise awareness for restoring biodiversity, is participating in the Montreal summit. Its president Kotoko Yadomaru has been involved in creating a framework for youth activities and making policy recommendations to protect biodiversity in the next decade. She says: "Youth’s greatest strength is our ability to boldly take on challenges without fear of failure. We need to accelerate our actions in cooperation with various stakeholders, including other NGOs and governments, on an equal footing”"

According to the Global Risks Report 2022 published by the World Economic Forum, the top three most serious risks that could occur in the next decade are failure to combat climate change, extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss. The G7 Minister’s Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment will be held in Japan next April, and the Environment Minister Nishimura Akihiro has noted that "global environmental issues such as climate change, circular economy, and biodiversity have been among the top concerns of G7 leaders in recent years”. It is expected that the meeting, of which Japan is the chair, will focus on the consideration of concrete measures to prevent the loss of biodiversity and restore it by 2030.