Habitat and Biodiversity Loss: Where Have All the Foxes Gone?

This past summer I experienced a novel sight in my backyard: multiple red foxes passing through in the middle of the day, sometimes with a mouth full of a small critter bound to be dinner. I had never seen a red fox so up close and was taken by their beauty, sleekness and agility. But my small, suburban yard sandwiched in between two relatively busy streets in the Portland, Maine area did not seem like a likely place for foxes to appear, so I was also a bit perplexed and concerned.  

I called the Maine State Game Warden’s office to see if the appearance of foxes in the middle of the day in an urban area was normal and to determine whether my neighbors and I should be concerned about pets, in case the foxes were rabid. My research led to the conclusion that the foxes weren’t rabid but that there was likely a den with new fox kits in the area and that the parents were on the hunt for food. I was thrilled. In my mind, this was evidence of growing biodiversity in my neighborhood and the resilience and adaptability of nature.  

It was a sad moment, then, when I discovered on a walk around the neighborhood one evening that the foxes were being forced from their home in what was once a very large meadow surrounded by trees a few blocks away. According to people I met who live closer to the meadow, a large group of foxes had been living there for years, but the site had been cleared in the spring and was being graded for residential construction. I saw about 10 foxes that evening and during the next few weeks, including very young ones that played chase with each other up and down the mounds of rubble and hills of sand brought in to grade the site.  

Soon the foxes no longer wandered through my or my neighbors’ yards, and they disappeared from the former meadow site once the townhome construction began in earnest. They had lost their habitat and the accompanying food sources to development. The small greenspaces between the homes on my street were not large enough for the group of foxes to live, rest, hunt, and play.  

I hope the fox skulk found its way to some conserved land a few miles away. But this scenario of animals being forced from their natural habitat is repeated thousands of times over in a year across the globe. And it made me think more about whether most companies (and humans in general) are aware of the impact of their activities on habitat and biodiversity, and for those that are, the effectiveness of their actions to minimize it.

Contrast this with my experience staying at an eco-resort in Costa Rica this spring. The simple adobe accommodations were tucked into a hillside in the jungle. Crabs, spiders, and geckos skittered across walking paths littered with leaves from the trees. Four species of monkeys swung through the forest canopy above the property, feeding off the fruits and flowers in the native trees, and nursing their young while hanging on branches above. The road to the resort was unpaved, and poison dart frogs, luna moths, dozens of species of butterflies, and a python snake shared it with the humans residing or visiting there. While the resort had certainly created some impact, the owner/developer had clearly taken pains to ensure the surrounding habitat was minimally changed. 

In 2019 a report by the U.N. estimated that 1 million species are at risk of extinction in the next decade. The good news is that, after several years of negotiations, in December of 2022, 196 countries* signed a new agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, setting the goal to protect 30% of the Earth’s land, inland waters and seas by 2030. It also aims to ensure that 30% of degraded areas are restored. The ambitious conservation goals were met with new commitments to pay for the work: a target of mobilizing $200 billion (U.S.) a year from both public and private sources.   

What role does the business sector play in all this?  

The CDP conducted research (November 2022) of nearly 8,000 companies and concluded that while businesses are ready to disclose data on biodiversity, a majority (55%) have failed to take action on biodiversity commitments they have already made. Meanwhile, the KPMG Survey of Sustainability Reporting (October 2022) included findings that only 40% of 5,800 leading companies in 58 countries report on biodiversity. 

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published a draft of its revised biodiversity reporting standard (GRI-304) in December 2022 and the final version of the standard is expected to be released in Q4 2023. GRI has been collaborating with other reporting frameworks such as the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) in Europe and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to ensure alignment. CDP has said that GRI’s new standard will inform their platform.

Enhanced reporting standards and target setting are important steps in the fight against the loss of biodiversity, as is the global commitment set up by the Kunming-Montreal framework. Companies can strive to better assess and disclose their impact on biodiversity and set goals to improve. But those commitments and disclosures need to be translated to action if we want to better manage the impact we’re all having on our ecosystems. The SustainabilityNext team is ready to work with our clients to help you advance your work on this critical topic. Together we can help protect the homes of the magnificent creatures that share the planet with us, including those red foxes.

*The U.S. is the only country of the 197 signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity never to have ratified the pact, so was not an official party in the Kunming-Montreal meetings. However, the U.S. did participate as an observer and commit funds to protect biodiversity globally.