Today, Administrator Samantha Power welcomed the release of USAID's 2024 Biodiversity Policy, marking ten years since the launch of the Agency's first policy on biodiversity conservation.
Biodiversity - the enormous variety of all life on Earth - is the foundation for human development and survival. But nature is in crisis, with 75 percent of the planet's land and 40 percent of the ocean significantly degraded, and more than an estimated one million species at risk of extinction. The 2024 USAID Biodiversity Policy provides a blueprint for how USAID will work to conserve biodiversity in priority places and advance international development that halts and reverses biodiversity loss.
Guiding approaches to achieve transformative shifts towards these goals include robust efforts to enhance and expand impactful partnerships between USAID and local communities, including Indigenous Peoples, to lead biodiversity conversation and engage them as agents for positive change. This includes promoting locally led development with Indigenous Peoples and local communities stewardship, cross-sectoral approaches, nature-based solutions, private-sector and policy engagement, and evidence-based learning.
Thanks to the generous bipartisan, bicameral support of Congress, USAID is one of the largest global funders of international conservation, with a decades-long legacy of advancing biodiversity conservation efforts worldwide. Working to conserve biodiversity in more than 60 countries, USAID has improved the conservation of over 100 million hectares annually over the past ten years - an area the size of Texas and New Mexico combined.
