09/10/2025
16:00 - 16:30
Forum - Arena
, Hybrid (onsite with livestreaming)
Session with interpretation
Why attend
“Healthy freshwater ecosystems are central to global efforts to adapt to these [climate] impacts and build long term resilience” (IUCN President Razan Al Mubarak). Freshwater ecosystems include important stores of global carbon. Session participants will observe how we can combine biodiversity and carbon data to aid resilient decision-making.
Session Description
Globally, areas of high biodiversity value often align with areas that are critical assets in terms of their ‘nature’s contributions to people’ (NCP). One of these global scale NCP’s is carbon storage in ecosystems. Conserving ecosystems of high carbon storage, with their species, is therefore vital for safeguarding the ‘irrecoverable carbon’ present that if, lost, could not be easily restored. Comparisons between areas critical for stored carbon and biodiversity have often focused on terrestrial data. This year, the first global assessment of freshwater fauna was completed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, significantly enhancing knowledge on patterns of freshwater species richness and threat. This session will compare the Red List data on freshwater biodiversity with Conservation International’s data on irrecoverable carbon storage, identifying priorities between them. It will stimulate discussion on conservation opportunities for both, and the relevance of this work to climate security.