Nearly 200 countries including New Zealand have signed a historic deal to protect a third of the planet for nature by 2030.
The Kunming-Montreal agreement aims to protect biodiversity by stopping the destruction of the Earth's ecosystems.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: "We are finally starting to forge a peace pact with nature."
As well as protecting 30 percent of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, the agreement aims to restore 30 percent of the planet's degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems.
Biodiversity is being lost faster than ever, with millions of species being pushed to the brink of extinction.
It's a concern the entire world is facing and the driver of a historic deal that's been four years in the making.
The agreement was put on hold due to COVID-19 but finally, nearly 200 governments were able to meet to sign the Kunming-Montreal agreement which was hosted by the Canadian city of Montreal and chaired by China.
The agreement has 23 targets in total including the '30x30' initiative which is aimed at protecting 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030.
"It's gonna be tough. In New Zealand, I think that we can be proud of the fact that we already have 30 percent of our land estate in conservation. That state of that on the other hand isn't in great shape," Green Party co-leader James Shaw said.
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There are also hefty targets to restore damaged ecosystems and tackle the over-exploitation of wild species and stop pollution damaging the environment.
"It means there here can be increased justification by the public to ask for better preservation of our environments," Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research's Peter Buchanan said.
The deal follows warnings that humans are responsible for the start of our planet's sixth mass extinction.
"We need to be putting in measures to halt the decline of our marine biodiversity and what we're doing to date doesn't seem to be halting the decline," marine ecologist Dana Clark said.
The new targets address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.
Department of Conservation's Kayla Kingdom-Bebb said: "This new global framework really recognises that climate change and biodiversity laws and inextricably linked and need to be addressed together going forward."
Shaw said: "It's absolutely critical, we depend on our wildernesses, our indigenous biodiversity actually for our very survival as human beings."
Conservation Minister Poto Williams attended the conference in Montreal.
She said New Zealand has already made moves in this area with the Emissions Reduction Plan and National Adaptation Plan.
The Government recently committed $1.3 billion to international climate finance. Half has been allocated to Pacific Island countries but there'll need to be more where that came from.
"An agreement is an agreement but we need action points along the way we need it to be monitored," Buchanan said.
Actions speak louder than words but in this case, the lofty words thrown about in Montreal need to be put into action.
