An elephant is standing in front of the tree. On the left handside is the icon of SDG 15.

    SDG 15 – Life on Land

    Why everyone needs an intact nature

    Nature forms our basis of life. Almost everything we humans need for our existence comes from nature. Healthy and diverse ecosystems supply us with air, water, food, clothing and raw materials of all kinds. Many of our medicines also originate in nature. For example, three-quarters of all antibiotics and two-thirds of all cancer drugs come from there. Recreation and health are also closely linked to nature.

    The economy is also heavily dependent on them. According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of global GDP depends in some way on nature. This can be water for cooling for industrial processes, wood for furniture production, or it can be cocoa beans for the production of chocolate. Particularly affected are German and European companies (beyond the financial sector), which, according to the European Central Bank, are two-thirds dependent on functioning ecosystems. And banks themselves are also heavily dependent on nature: according to ECB findings, three quarters of all loans in the euro area go to companies that are heavily dependent on at least one ecosystem service.

    Nature as a buffer against global warming

    In addition, the further course of global warming is closely linked to intact nature and whether natural areas such as forests, peatlands and soils can be preserved or even regenerated. This is because they store the climate-damaging CO2 naturally, which is why they are also referred to as CO2 sinks or as "nature-based solutions". Biodiversity is therefore a crucial factor in the fight against climate change.

    The more diverse ecosystems are, the more reliably they can provide all these services. Biodiversity is something like the engine room of nature. It ensures, for example, that plants are pollinated, seeds are spread, forests are regenerated or soils are kept fertile. In a complex interplay, the species form a web of life that must not become brittle.

    Dramatic decline

    But that is exactly what is happening. The decline in natural habitats and biodiversity has now reached dramatic proportions and has never been so great in human history: it ranges from the loss of birds and mammals to the loss of various ferns and fir trees to the spread of deserts.

    According to the IPBES, one in eight million estimated species is threatened with extinction in the next few decades. According to scientific calculations, the extinction rate is now 10 to 100 times higher than in the last 10 million years. We are in the sixth mass extinction of Earth’s history, but with a slight difference from the past: this time, man is the driving force.

    New targets for 2030

    In order to counteract this, the international community set itself new targets for 2030 with the "Global Biodiversity Framework" (GBF) in 2022. This includes, for example, placing 30% of the earth's surface under protection and restoring just as much degenerated land. At the 2024 Conference of the Parties, these objectives were clarified and supplemented by new financing mechanisms and an international upgrade of indigenous peoples and local communities (IP&LC). The latter are now firmly represented at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. This provides a sound political framework, and now it is implementation that matters.

    KfW is committed to reversing the trend in nature loss, in line with the 2030 Agenda and the GBF. Preserving ecosystems, halting the loss of biodiversity, using land and forests sustainably and combating desertification, as provided for in SDG 15, is a question of humanity’s future.

    Germany is strongly committed to the conservation of biological diversity and is one of the world's largest donors through KfW, among others. KfW takes care to follow an human rights-based approach and to involve Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LC), as their livelihoods depend heavily on nature. At the same time, they are particularly good “guardians” of nature. As set out in the GBF, this involvement takes the form of active participation in local decision-making or through complaint mechanisms so that they can contact someone if their concerns are not sufficiently taken into account. Recently, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity also established a permanent committee consisting of indigenous representatives.

    In 2024, KfW Development bank provided new financing totalling more than EUR 1.1 billion, which is expected to contribute to achieving SDG 15. The financing agreements signed in 2024 are expected to contribute to the protection of over 95 million hectares of terrestrial and marine protected areas over the next few years. This corresponds to around 2.6 times the land area of Germany.

    KfW cooperates not only with partner countries, but also with major nature conservation organisations like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and with non-governmental organisations like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (ZGF). They all jointly pursue the goal of protecting and preserving natural habitats as extensively as possible.

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