At a meeting with the president of WWF US, Carter Roberts, the Minister of Environment of Chile Carolina Schmidt emphasized the commitment of the Chilean state to conserve and effectively manage its marine protected areas. They agreed to study mechanisms to protect marine ecosystems.
In a meeting held at COP26 in Glasgow, the Ministry of Environment of Chile and WWF US expressed their commitment to collaborate in the search for long-term funding of Chile’s marine protected areas (MPAs).
“As a country, we see the ocean as part of our action on climate change, as we have stressed in our NDC and our Long-Term Climate Strategy,” Minister Schmidt asserted.
The president and CEO of WWF US, Carter Roberts, highlighted that “Chile has made impressive progress over the past decade in securing management of its terrestrial protected areas and greatly expanding marine areas designated for protection within its Exclusive Economic Zone from 13% to more than 42%. But a financial gap remains to be filled if effective marine conservation is to be realized and Chile’s goal of conserving 30% of its territory for social, biodiversity and climate benefits is to be met by 2030. WWF looks forward to helping the government explore ways to close this financing gap for its marine protected areas.”
Minister Schmidt celebrated this collaboration and underscored that marine conservation is part of a long-term government vision to effectively conserve marine ecosystems that are protected by Chile’s MPA network.
The country held the presidency of COP25, recognized as the Blue COP, where parties formally integrated the agendas for climate and the ocean, and has signed important commitments like the Third Because the Ocean Declaration which propels the global community to continue in this direction. Chile also participates in the High Ambition Coalition and the Global Ocean Alliance in support of the vision that 30% of the planet should be protected by 2030, the so-called 30×30 goal.
“Achieving funding is certainly a challenge, and so we thank the support of WWF in this task and we redouble our commitment in the long term to protect our ocean, not only as part of the fight against the climate crisis, but also to protect and recover marine biodiversity, as well as to strengthen sustainable livelihoods of coastal communities that depend on a healthy ocean,” Minister Schmidt affirmed.