Michael Marshall, environment reporter
The promises are coming thick and fast in the run-up to the United Nations biodiversity conference in Japan later this month, as countries fall over each other to commit to protect the world's endangered species.
The US announced today that it was writing off $30 million of Costa Rica's debt. In exchange, Costa Rica will create a host of new protected areas, increase the management of its existing ones and create a series of protected corridors between them so that species can move freely.
This follows a 2007 agreement that saw $26 million of Costa Rica's debt wiped out in exchange for protecting 1000 hectares of tropical forest. Debt-for-nature swaps like this were pioneered in 1987 by the US and Bolivia. Despite some early failures, more recent deals have worked well.
$17 million has already been pledged to Costa Rica by private donors. A spokesperson for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the international treaty that administers UN biodiversity programmes, was "hopeful" that a further $3 million would be committed during the conference, meaning Costa Rica could receive $50 million in new donations.
More such announcements are expected over the next few weeks.
But just to put a damper on the good news, the latest word from conservation scientists is that the proposed targets being discussed at the UN conference - you've guessed it - won't go far enough.
Yesterday the non-profit organisation Conservation International issued a technical brief which argues that we need to protect 25 per cent of Earth's land area and 15 per cent of its oceans.
By contrast, the latest draft text for the conference says:
Target 11: By 2020, at least [15%][20%] of terrestrial, inland-water and [X%] of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved. (square brackets indicate contentious numbers that are in negotiation)
So the target for protected areas on land might be too low, and they haven't managed to agree a target for marine areas.
Conservation International says its proposed targets would both preserve the majority of Earth's range of species and ensure that 90 per cent of the planet's biomass was retained - as opposed to being destroyed and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Jo Mulongoy of the CBD secretariat had this to say:
Constraints on land use may make it difficult to exceed far beyond 20 per cent for terrestrial areas globally. For marine areas 30 to 40 per cent is regarded on scientific grounds as a good long-term target. The targets for 2020 should be steps towards those. Against this background, 15 to 20 per cent by 2020 may be seen as reasonable for both terrestrial and marine. In a sense, making progress on marine is more urgent, but perhaps also more challenging, given the low existing levels.
All in all, lots of good news has come out and there's more to come. But we're not out of the woods yet.