By Abbas Nazil
Governments have reached a fragile agreement to strengthen global biodiversity conservation and mobilise additional funding for nature protection following two weeks of difficult negotiations at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia.
The agreement, reached on Saturday, October 31, calls for countries to accelerate efforts to reverse biodiversity loss and, for the first time, invites wealthy emerging economies, including China and Gulf states, to voluntarily consider contributing to international biodiversity financing alongside developed countries.
The outcome, however, has raised concerns among conservation advocates and developing nations over persistent funding shortages and the limited commitments made towards implementing the global biodiversity targets.
The conference adopted a framework known as the Yerevan Pathway, which seeks to strengthen national biodiversity policies, address harmful subsidies and improve the protection of terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems.
The negotiations followed a United Nations assessment which found that the world was not on track to achieve 22 of the 23 global biodiversity targets designed to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
The targets form part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted in 2022, which includes a commitment to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and marine areas by the end of the decade.
However, existing national commitments indicate that only about 26 per cent of land and 12 per cent of marine ecosystems would receive protection if countries maintain their current plans.
The Yerevan Pathway therefore calls on governments to review and strengthen their national biodiversity strategies and action plans, subject to the availability of financial resources, with particular attention to gaps in the protection of marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems.
More than 60 countries that have yet to submit their national biodiversity plans were also urged to complete them as soon as possible, taking into account the shortcomings identified in the global progress assessment.
