On October 29, NYK released its Nature Positive Declaration, as encouraged by the Japan Conference for 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework (J-GBF), which has Japan’s Ministry of the Environment as its secretariat.
Additionally, on November 13, NYK joined the 30 by 30 Alliance for Biodiversity, initiated by 17 organizations from industry, private and public sectors, and Japan’s Ministry of the Environment.
The 30 by 30 Alliance aims to effectively conserve at least 30% of the land and sea as healthy ecosystems by 2030.
Japan will expand the current protected areas (approximately 20% of land areas and 13% of sea areas) and promote efforts to certify areas that have been conserved by the private sector as other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM), places where biodiversity conservation is being promoted outside of officially protected areas, such as company-owned forests.
As a short-term goal toward the 2050 vision of a world in harmony with nature, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in December 2022 at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity set the 2030 mission to “take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery,” i.e., the achievement of a nature-positive economy.
J-GBF is thus promoting collaboration with the participation of all sectors in Japan, including the national government, local governments, businesses, citizens, and NGOs to achieve international targets and national strategies.
To start with, stakeholders are encouraged to make a declaration of their activities toward becoming nature-positive. Participation in the 30 by 30 Alliance means actively promoting the 30 by 30 targets, which are positioned as one of the goals toward realizing a nature-positive economy.
NYK has positioned the marine environment and biodiversity conservation as one of the environmental issues that must be addressed, and NYK is striving to preserve biodiversity. Its environmental DNA sampling of the open ocean and reforestation project, Yu no Mori, align with efforts to realize a nature-positive economy.
As for the 30 by 30 Alliance for Biodiversity, NYK aims to register Yu no Mori, which began in May 2024, as an OECM and will work on reforestation through Yu no Mori to achieve the 30 by 30 targets and contribute to the realization of nature positivity.
Photo credit: iStock/ miya227
