Ecological connectivity is essential for the health and resilience of ecosystems, allowing species to move, linking habitats, supporting processes to flow, and serving as a nature-based solution for climate change adaptation and mitigation. This side event will highlight the importance of ecological connectivity in addressing the interrelated challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, and ecosystem degradation. The side event will provide participants with insights into: collaborative efforts happening around the world to maintain, enhance, and restore connectivity; how connectivity is already being addressed in National Biodiversity and Strategic Action Plans (NBSAPs); and the opportunities for its effective integration as Parties continue to revised and update their plans.
 

Overall, ecological connectivity underpins a landscape and seascape approach for achieving

the multiple goals of environmental, social, and economic priorities. A sound understanding and set of tools to address ecological connectivity is essential for conservation at broader scales and sustainability of key economic sectors, including agriculture, infrastructure, extractive industries, fishing, shipping, urban development, and others that both impact and are supported by well-functioning ecosystems and the services they provide. 

Ecological connectivity is a central element in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), including in Goal A, which aims at enhancing the integrity and connectivity of all ecosystems to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services. It is also included in Target 2 on ecosystem restoration, Target 3 on effectively managed and ecologically representative protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and Target 12 on urban planning. Moreover, avoiding fragmentation and striving to maximize connectivity across landscapes and seascapes can accelerate commitments and maximize efforts to achieve more concerted and successful implementation of the entire framework.
 

In addition to identifying opportunities and challenges for Parties to address connectivity in NBSAPs, the event also seeks to highlight successful case studies of policies, approaches, tools, and best-practices from around the world to inspire action across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. The event will include interventions by representatives from the governments of Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador among other contributions yet to be confirmed. This will foster dialogue among Parties, observers, and other stakeholders, including highlighting the newly launched Global Partnership on Ecological Connectivity (GPEC) as a premier platform for cooperation, detailing related indicators in the KMGBF monitoring framework, presenting joint efforts to create the World Database on Ecological Corridors, and deploying new guidance for integrating connectivity into systematic conservation planning.  

Organization of the event is being led by the core partners of the Global Partnership on Ecological Connectivity (GPEC), namely the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), International Union for Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group (IUCN WCPA CCSG), Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC), UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).