Montreal, Dec 19 (TIWN) Nearing the conclusion of a sometimes fractious two-week meeting, nearly 200 nations of the world on Monday agreed on a historic package of measures deemed critical to addressing the dangerous loss of biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems.

Convened under UN auspices, chaired by China, and hosted by Canada, the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the "Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework" (GBF), including four goals and 23 targets for achievement by 2030.

Among the global targets for 2030 are: Effective conservation and management of at least 30 per cent of the world's lands, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans, with emphasis on areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and services.

The GBF prioritizes ecologically-representative, well-connected and equitably-governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories and practices.

Currently 17 per cent and 10 per cent of the world's terrestrial and marine areas respectively are under protection.

Have restoration completed or underway on at least 30 per cent of degraded terrestrial, inland waters, and coastal and marine ecosystems and reduce to near zero the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance, including ecosystems of high ecological integrity.

The GBF warns: "Without such action, there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years."