YEREVAN, Armenia, October 29 (IPS) - At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17, the presence of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) is impossible to miss. Indigenous representatives speak at side events, participate in contact groups, advise negotiators and engage across multiple forums shaping the future of global biodiversity policy.

Lors de la COP16, un accord avait été négocié pour indemniser les peuples du Sud, dont les trésors biologiques sont largement spoliés par les entreprises pharmaceutiques, cosmétiques, semencières du Nord, Deux ans plus tard, les 20 000 boîtes concernées ont…

Yerevan, Armenia, Oct. 27, 2026 — The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) delegation is deeply concerned governments at the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD CoP17) will resort to more process and not progress on integrating the world's climate and biodiversity agendas and actions. The following statement was issued today from Wildlife Conservation Society's Carlos Rittl: "COP16 in Cali, 2024, adopted a landmark decision recognizing that climate and biodiversity must be tackled in an integrated way, and affirmed that protecting and restoring ecological integrity contribute to addressing both climate change and biodiversity loss. At COP17 in Yerevan, parties have the opportunity to turn that commitment into concrete action. "However, WCS is concerned about the direction the negotiations are taking. The text under discussion risks reducing the outcome of COP17 to a review process for a multilevel roadmap aimed at enhancing policy coherence between the Rio Conventions. The roadmap introduced at COP17 is a concrete, actionable and voluntary document that reflects valuable parties and expert inputs collected all through the year. Parties should welcome it as a basis for further cooperation, not merely send it out for another round of consultations. "WCS is equally concerned that the language on ecological integrity, a central principle...

Read ZSL's position paper on what we would like to see achieved at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP16.

Die Biodiversitätskonvention hat zentrale Punkte zur Finanzierung des 30-×-30-Ziels geklärt. Entdecken Sie die Details der COP16.

June Rubis is a steering group committee member for the Cali Fund, from Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo. At COP16 in Cali, governments made a significant commitment: at least half of the funding from the new Cali Fund should support the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth. It was a watershed moment for multilateral benefit-sharing. The challenge now is to translate that commitment into access arrangements that recognise the different institutions, priorities and decision-making processes of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. For generations, biodiversity and traditional Indigenous knowledge have provided significant value to companies who depend on nature’s genetic diversity to discover new drugs that fight diseases, create products that improve health, and grow crops resilient to extreme heat and flooding events. While some compounds are sampled directly from the source country, increasingly the digital blueprints are held in online public databases which are freely accessible to use for innovation and research. Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17 The Cali Fund was established at COP16 to encourage commercial users of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI, to share benefits arising from its use. Estimates suggest it could generate over $3.5 billion a...

「COP」（締約国会議）と聞くと、気候変動を議論するCOPや、生物多様性を議論するCOPを思い浮かべる人が多いのではないだろうか。実はもう一つ、1992年の地球サミットを起点とする「リオ3条約」の一つに、国連砂漠化対処条約（UNCCD）がある。 2026年8月、その第17回締約国会議（COP17）がモンゴル・ウランバートルで開催された。今月にはUNCCDによる報告書も公表され、COP16から続いて...

Since COP16 in Cali, the finance sector has made significant progress in building the frameworks, standards and instruments needed to address nature loss. Yet a gap between this architecture and its implementation means significant capital is still flowing into activities harmful to nature compared with amounts invested in nature-based solutions. Ahead of COP17 in Yerevan, financial institutions must redouble their efforts while governments provide the policy and regulatory certainty needed to drive action at scale. Amsterdam, 15 October 2026 – In the two years since COP16 in Cali, the finance sector has made significant progress in building the foundations for nature finance, but stronger action and clearer government policies are needed to meet global biodiversity targets for 2030. 2023 data reveal a stark imbalance in global financial flows: finance directed towards nature-negative activities exceeded investment in nature-based solutions by approximately 30 to 1. Moreover, financing for nature-based solutions remains overwhelmingly dependent on public funding, with private finance accounting for only around 10% of total investment. Public finance is struggling to keep pace with growing needs, while gaps in tracking private investment make it difficult to measure progress. Parties consistently identify private finance as the hardest to report, because contributions are...

In the two years since COP16 in Cali, Colombia, the finance sector has made significant progress in building the foundations for nature finance. Yet financial flows remain fundamentally misaligned with global biodiversity goals. UNEP FI’s 2026 report card finds that stronger action by financial institutions, alongside clearer government policies and regulations, is needed to meet the 2030 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Published ahead of COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, the report coincides with an important milestone for the Framework: its first Global Review of Collective Progress. It contributes a financial-sector perspective to this global stocktake, examining both the progress made in developing the tools and frameworks for nature finance and the gaps that remain in aligning financial flows with biodiversity goals. The findings point to a need for action on both sides. Financial institutions must redouble their efforts to mobilise finance, manage nature-related risks and improve data and reporting. Governments must provide greater policy and legal certainty, reform incentives that harm nature and use public finance to help unlock private investment...

COP17 in Ulaanbaatar ended with Indigenous Peoples and local communities still excluded from promised formal participation, as caucuses created at COP16 were never operationalised. Key agenda items on...

The United Nations biodiversity summit, known as COP16, comes amid growing concerns over plummeting populations of plants and animals, and damage to the habitats that sustain life on earth, from forests to rivers and oceans. At the last UN global summit on biodiversity, held in December 2022, nearly 200 countries signed up to an ambitious plan to reverse nature loss by the end of the decade.

In the spirit of the theme “Restoring Land, Restoring Hope”, UNCCD COP17 recognised that sustainable and resilient food and agricultural systems are at the heart of the land, climate and biodiversity nexus. On the dedicated thematic day on Food Systems and Soil Health, the attendees zoomed in on how sustainable food and agricultural systems can accelerate progress toward the UNCCD 2030 objectives. While COP16's Action Agenda already included a Food Day, COP17 expanded this into a joint Food Systems and Soil Health Day for the first time. The day brought together a wide range of voices around four priorities: advancing political commitment to soil health, mobilizing finance and investment for sustainable food systems, putting people at the centre of land stewardship, and strengthening coherence across the Rio Conventions (UNCCD; UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC; Convention on Biological Diversity CBD). Food and agricultural systems emerged as a key entry point for synergising action across the Rio Conventions. Even though IUCN heard strong ambitions from many countries to adopt integrated approaches for delivering climate, biodiversity, and land outcomes, formal negotiations to integrate action across the Rio Conventions were blocked. This is why turning that ambition into reality will require working...

México fortaleció la cooperación regional para la protección de los conocimientos tradicionales de los pueblos indígenas, sus derechos y su participación en la conservación de la biodiversidad, durant...