GBF

Download the full issue as pdf

Snowman to snow-mess: negotiations at COP15 are opening doors to risky technologies

Nithin Ramakrishnan, Third World Network

An avalanche of heated discussions accompanied the first snowfall of this winter in Montreal. Regarding synthetic biology and target 17, the texts currently being discussed fall short on establishing robust international rules to govern biotechnology.

The inability to reach consensus, coupled with biased steering from those chairing discussions has severely weakened the text. While the government of Canada hosts a snowman building competition, negotiators of target 17 replace the “spirit of compromise” with a messy snowball fight of finger pointing.

As a result, several of the concerns raised by civil society organisations working on the issues of synthetic biology and biotechnology remain unresolved. For example, the lack of a biotechnology related target that establishes a process for horizon scanning, technology assessment and monitoring and considers socioeconomic impacts of synthetic biology reinforces the need for a global moratorium on the environmental release of gene drives.

It seems that the GBF as it stands today is blindfolded. It will not be able to see further and enable the assessment and monitoring of the potential adverse impacts of biotechnology and synthetic biology. In the case of gene drives, that once released, cannot be controlled, contained, reversed or recalled, this lack of international agreement poses critical threats to biodiversity and human rights.

It seems that the GBF will guarantee neither that new technologies are approached with precaution, nor that countries are equipped with the right tools to assess them. Therefore, their release must be halted. For more information, access the text of the manifesto for a global moratorium on the environmental release of gene drive organisms here:  https://www.stop-genedrives.eu/en/manifesto/

DSI decision should not undermine the scope of the CBD

Nithin Ramakrishnan, Third World Network

While there are rays of hope around the draft decision on Digital Sequence Information (DSI), a very few developed countries continue to forward hardline positions without remorse. These countries have continuously attempted to get a decision that states that DSI is not covered under the scope of the Convention. The current version of the draft decision contains this view in brackets: “Recognizing that there are divergent views on digital sequence information on genetic resources [with regards to its scope under][in relation to its scope in] the Convention on Biological Diversity”.

A worst case interpretation is that this paragraph gives recognition to a view that there is divergence regarding the scope of the Convention, as to whether it deals with DSI or not. This has never been the case. Decision 14/20 only points to divergence regarding the views relating to benefit sharing arising from the use of DSI, and there was a commitment to resolve such divergences. The draft decision, unfortunately, may accept an even graver form of divergence with regards to the scope of the Convention and whether it covers DSI.

To have such an outcome, for a promise of a future fund, of which details are unknown at this stage, is risky for developing countries. It may undermine their positions in many other forums such as the WHO, ITPGRFA and UNCLOS,where they are demanding fair and equitable benefit sharing from the use of the DSI based on the obligations of the CBD. The invitation to the users of DSI to contribute funds voluntarily to the proposed fund adds to this uncertainty. This may unfortunately open the door for users to contribute charity to the fund, but discharge their obligations under the Convention.

Download the full issue as pdf

Biodiversity for Her: an inclusive, rights-based post-2020 GBF with gender-responsive indicators

UNCBD Women’s Caucus

What will make women truly included in biodiversity policy? What does it take to make “biodiversity for her?” At the “Biodiversity for Her” press conference this week, women and human rights advocates spoke about how this policy would look. “A gender-responsive post-2020 global biodiversity is one where human rights is at its core,” according to Human Rights Officer Benjamin Schachter from the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. He and other speakers advocate for a human rights-based approach. A stand-alone gender equality target, Target 22, also has to be phrased as “gender-responsive,” and not just “gender-sensitive,” according to Schachter and later affirmed by Alejandra Duarte Guardia from Women4Biodiversity’s policy team. The main difference between gender sensitive and gender responsive is that sensitive is about being aware of gender and doing no harm, whereas gender responsive is about actively responding to the needs of women and men.

The speakers also pointed to the implementation of the Gender Plan of Action with gender-responsive indicators. Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, Cicilia Githaiga highlighted the need to be “specific and deliberate” with the indicators as the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans “need to account for all in society.” Access to funding is also crucial. “If we don’t give opportunities to women for direct funding, the framework won’t be worth much”, Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet, founder and president of the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests pointed out. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, Archana Soreng, highlighted the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as “their promotion of traditional knowledge and practices of local communities are integral to gender-responsive policies.”

Why is a human rights-based approach essential for the new Global Biodiversity Framework?

Diego Cardona, CENSAT Agua Viva / Amigos de la Tierra Colombia

The struggle over the benefits that proceed from the exploitation of biodiversity has negative impacts on territories. Their inhabitants, especially environmental defenders, are displaced, intimidated, criminalized or murdered in attempts to exploit minerals, timber, water or hydrocarbons. More recently, basic human rights have also been violated, for example in unregulated carbon market projects. These rights include free, prior and informed consent, effective participation, housing or food. Actions violating human rights are backed by concepts such as net zero, compensation or nature positive. Their effects include community divisions, deceit (1), results without benefits for communities which the environmental authorities in the Amazon warned about (2), and restrictions on production and livelihood practices such as agriculture which are essential to guarantee the right to food. The latter can cause or increase the risk of physical and/or cultural disappearance: in Colombia the Constitutional Court estimated that 35 indigenous peoples were seriously affected by armed conflict and  extractivism, in its Ruling T-025 of 2004 (3). In 2017, the Court increased the number of towns that suffer these effects and confirmed the government's failure to protect them (4).

The Human Rights Council, in its 46th session, established that environmental damage can have disastrous consequences on the quality of life of populations that directly depend on forests, rivers, lakes, wetlands and oceans for food, fuel and medicine, which in turn produces greater inequality and marginalization. All of the above, but mainly the testimonies of the affected peoples and communities themselves, confirm the relationship between biological diversity and fundamental rights for dignified survival in adequate conditions. For this reason, a human rights-based approach in the new GBF in all relevant targets is essential towards compliance and to enable monitoring through clear implementation indicators.

The Four A’s for a successful GBF: Acknowledge, Act, Accountability, ASAP

Iris Dicke, Noa Steiner and Rosalind Helfand, University of Cambridge Conservation Leadership Alumni Network (UCCLAN)

Parties negotiating the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) have a once in a decade opportunity to listen and act according to science, specifically IPBES and IPCC, with the aim to safeguard our survival, and truly live in harmony with nature. UCCLAN developed a 4As approach for a successful GBF.

Acknowledge that indirect economic, social, and political drivers are the root causes of biodiversity loss. We need to internalize environmental externalities through taxation, fiscal, and regulatory measures to achieve an economic approach that moves beyond a focus on GDP and applies a systems approach to wellbeing, such as doughnut economics. This can be reflected in Target 14 and its future indicators. Recognizing the interlinkages, feedback loops, and possible trade-offs between and within targets and goals to enhance synergies, will help to prevent future cherry-picking of targets while addressing their interdependencies. This can be acknowledged, for example through reinserting a reference to these elements and the IPBES conceptual framework, as mentioned in the Nairobi text, section D.

Act to show collective crisis leadership (1) in reaching creative and ambitious compromises. To ensure effective implementation of the framework, i, enabling conditions and cross-cutting principles of B Bis must remain strong, with measurable indicators. In addition, leadership for conservation should be enhanced, integrated in capacity-building activities as an enabling condition, and reflected in Section I, H, J, and K. The GBF targets should be implemented in a national and subnational context-specific manner, aligned with increased resources and built on human rights based approaches.

Accountability by tracking implementation while reporting on and systematically removing national barriers to implementation. A simple, time-bound, live and transparent reporting mechanism, in synergy with other conventions, should be developed to allow for dynamic and synergistic reporting.

B: We call upon all parties to do this as soon as possible, starting today. There is no time to lose.

(1) Ngwenya, N., Helfand, R., McNamara, A., Cooper, M., Espinosa, P.A.O.L.A., Flenley, D., Steiner, N., Awoyemi, S., Dicke, I., Musasa, M. and Sandbrook, C., 2020. A call for collective crisis leadership. Oryx, 54(4), pp.431-432.

Wildlife trade causes pandemics and...
sorry let me take my mask off

Paul Todd, Natural Resources Defense Council

The tragic death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic stands at about 6.7 million people worldwide. We’re all wearing masks in the COP15 negotiations and testing daily to make sure we’re not catching or transmitting the deadly pathogen. Though still being investigated, COVID-19 likely emerged from a novel pathogen spillover event in a market where different wild animals were being sold alongside each other.  That spillover event could have happened just as easily along other points in the wildlife trade chain. Direct exploitation of wildlife, which includes wildlife trade, is also the second leading driver of terrestrial species loss (first for marine species) according to the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report. A Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) target to eliminate the threat to both biodiversity and human health posed by the wildlife trade by 2030 is a no-brainer.

Except that, inexplicably, it’s not. Target 5, which at one point simply and elegantly set the ambitious objective to end wildlife exploitation, use, and trade that is illegal, unsustainable, or that poses a risk of pathogen spillover, is a mess. Like so many other goals and targets that at one time, long ago now, simply sought to reduce or eliminate the five direct drivers of the biodiversity crisis and their associated indirect drivers, Target 5 has fallen victim to fears about what the target doesn’t say.

Some Parties seem to think it’s a clandestine effort to ban the sustainable use of wild species. Others appear to be conflating the direct exploitation driver of biodiversity loss with important issues related to illegal access and use of genetic resources covered elsewhere. Still others want to redirect the whole conversation about biodiversity and health to Bbis (also very important). Only a few brave Parties seem to get it and have insisted on the reinsertion of specific language to prevent pathogen spillover from wildlife trade in Target 5. As Ministers begin their high-level talks, hopefully they get it too and will keep this language intact as they test up, mask up, and join the fight to stop zoonotic disease pandemics before they start. Nobody wants to wear a mask at COP16.

Download the full issue as a pdf

A GBF that does not stop extinction now will be a failure

Paul Todd, Natural Resources Defense Council

Adopting a Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that does not immediately halt the extinction of wildlife will be viewed as a failure by the billions of people around the world who want to chart a new course for the planet. Halting species extinction by 2030 or 2050 is simply not good enough. The fact is, the vast majority of extinctions occurring now are caused by human activities, and they can be prevented. The Aichi Targets committed to halting extinctions of known threatened species by 2020. That did not happen. So, we must recommit ourselves to halting extinctions now, or we stand to lose arou nd a million species in the coming decades, according to the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report.

Draft Goal A contains language to reduce extinction risk by 20 percent or more by 2030 and eliminate extinction risk by 2050. But the actual extinctions of species must end immediately, not in 10 or 30 years, as suggested by some Parties. Goal A (or Target 4) must ensure that human-induced extinctions are halted – and halted now. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species classifies 8,722 species as “Critically Endangered” and many more as “Endangered.” A myriad of global, science-based organizations have said the same thing – halting extinction immediately is both necessary and achievable. We can save threatened species before they blink out, but only with urgent action.

Some reflections on a Biodiversity Fund

Antje Lorch, Ecoropa

The proposal for a specific biodiversity fund raises questions: how will money be distributed? Who will – directly or indirectly – decide on it? Negative experiences with the GEF are a recurring argument for a mechanism directly under the CBD. Inspiration comes from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), established by the UNFCCC in 2010, creating many hopes. Unfortunately, the experiences are discouraging: many consider the GCF worse than the GEF, and at the moment, climate finance provisions are dominated by loans, creating ever more debts.

Which challenges are structural in any fund? Which are specific to the GEF? Which are the specific problems for which a biodiversity fund can - and will have to - be a better contribution to halting biodiversity loss? Moreover, the question might be less whether “other sources” will appear, but: What will be the prerogatives for their input? How will the fund be governed? The GCF is open to private money and philanthropic donors. Currently, a decade after its creation, the GCF is discussing how to take money without philanthropists earmarking their money for specific purposes. Will a Biodiversity Fund be in a strong enough position to tell donors that the fund and the recipient countries will not be at their beck and
call?

Donors, philanthropy, pension funds, the private sector and super-rich individuals don’t have a legal obligation towards biodiversity. If they don’t like the conditions of a biodiversity fund, they can take their money somewhere else. They may prefer to use their power to spend their money where their preferences and their positive public visibility are served unhampered by multilateral rules and governance and the real needs of biodiversity and people in a Party-driven process. Will a biodiversity fund provide additional resources in a predictable and reliable manner?

Grande marche pour le vivant / March for Biodiversity and Human Rights

Yesterday, December 10, a March for Biodiversity and Human Rights took place in Montreal. It was organized by the Quebec Civil Society Collective for COP15, which regroups 85+ organizations mobilizing for biodiversity protection in the context of COP15, along with local and international allies.

The convening highlighted that we are one with nature, human rights have to be protected. Together, we can halt nature's decline, as well as fully respecting human rights and Indigenous peoples' rights. Together, we have the opportunity to propose a new social vision based on the preservation of all forms of life.

Active members of CBD Alliance joined the march. No Biodiversity framework without human rights. Conservation cannot be done without indigenous peoples and local communities. “We are tired of empty promises. We demand this COP to be based on justice, human rights and equity. Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisher folks are the ones who defend biodiversity against corporations, destruction and violence.", stated Mariann Bassey from ERA/FoEN during keynote speeches.

Download the full issue as pdf

A message to world leaders: that conservation cannot be done without people

Aracelly Jimenez Mora, mollusk gatherer from Chomes, Costa Rica and President o CoopeMolusChomes R.L.

We the people who live on the coasts and near the sea are the ones who know our problems,
what we have, what we need and what we want to solve. We are the ones who clean the
mangroves, make nurseries and plant mangrove trees to create a good environment that
produces quality shellfish and fish. The mangroves are nurseries for juvenile species: if we take
care of the shrimp, sea bass and snapper that grow here, we will have good quality products
over time.

Artisanal fishing and shellfish extraction generate income for our countries, they contribute to food security, to the fishing value chain: they are decent occupations. We are happy workers, full of hope, but we need to be heard because in our marine territories of life many of our rights are still being violated.

Marine protected areas and other marine conservation actions affect us greatly, especially
when institutions do not take communities into account for decision-making. We must
promote the co-management of the places and resources that we want to conserve. We have knowledge to share. Communities are not invaders, but as an integral part of the marine territory. We need to be recognized with respect.

The 30x30 target would affect us a lot, and not just us but all people whose livelihoods depend on healthy seas. This 30x30 decision was made without considering what fishermen thought.
Today we must comprehend the impact that 30x30 has on fishing communities.
We, the artisanal fishermen and fisherwomen, are the most interested in ensuring that the
seas, oceans, rivers, and mangroves are in good condition. Only then can we have good and
responsible fishing over time. We are the ones who care for and protect them because they are our source of work. If we are part of the decision-making process, we could take better care of our seas.

The sea and coasts mean life to me, work, joy, peace and love. My message to world leaders is that conservation cannot be done without people. We expect to be involved in decision-making related to the sea and the coasts, to be heard and taken into account. No one
but us knows our reality and needs.

UNDROP and UNDRIP as two complementary instruments to promote, respect and safeguard the rights to enhance biodiversity

International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty

While we all were in Sharm el Sheikh at the last COP of the CBD, in Geneva, the 10 years negotiation about the rights of peasants and other peoples living in rural areas was reaching its final stage. In fact, during the weeks of COP14, we received the great news that in Geneva, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) was approved.

10 years before, with the same enthusiasm, we welcomed the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Indigenous Peoples are among the first who started challenging the limited conceptual framework of human rights. They struggled for more than 30 years for the UNDRIP. This declaration was a watershed development for at least two reasons: it recognizes the right to land and territory and thus the importance of land, water, medicinal plants, animals and minerals for sustaining human life; and it stresses the collective dimension of this and other rights. In many respects UNDRIP and UNDROP contain quite similar provisions, yet they also reflect the different conceptions related to indigenous and non-indigenous people. A close, even integral connection with nature is more typically associated with Indigenous Peoples, which is also evident in the more advanced endeavors towards legal protection of Indigenous socio-ecological relations. A major difference between UNDROP and UNDRIP is the obligation to obtain people’s Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to development projects affecting them: this is recognised in UNDRIP (Art. 32.2) but not in UNDROP. Many rights accorded to Indigenous Peoples by UNDRIP appear in a less explicit and less obligatory form in UNDROP.

Indigenous Peoples and small-scale food producers are those who take care of most ecosystems; protecting and strengthening their rights is therefore a key obligation of states. The positive discrimination of Indigenous Peoples is well justified due to the different history that carried the collective rights for Indigenous Peoples and the small-scale food producers. UNDROP does not promote only peasants’ rights, but also all rural workers, including people working in crop planting, livestock raising, pastoralism, fishing, forestry, hunting or gathering. It is time to recognize the rights holders within the CBD under the correctly established declarations on collective rights: Indigenous Peoples under UNDRIP and small-scale food producers and local communities under UNDROP.

Human rights and biodiversity

Isaac Rojas, Friends of the Earth International

Respect for human rights is essential for biodiversity given the close and millenary relationship that exists between the two and is expressed, among others, through the role that Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) play in the conservation and the traditional and sustainable use of biodiversity. It is thanks to this relationship that today we have forests, jungles and other ecosystems. This relationship is manifested, among others, through traditional knowledge, belonging to the land and territory, culture and spirituality.

Activities such as large monocultures and plantations and others related to agro-commodities and mining generate enormous violations of both human rights and biodiversity. These range from the destruction of ecosystems, pollution, the establishment of false solutions (many of them based on markets and compensation) to assassinations and disappearances. There is a clear need for strong public policies to regulate the actions of corporations (including holding them accountable for the human rights violations they cause) and an urgent need to defend those who defend biodiversity, forests and impacted communities and Indigenous Peoples. We want no more killings of human rights defenders.

Some decisions taken in the field of biodiversity conservation have led to serious violations of human rights, especially the rights of IPLCs. This is the case of the creation of protected areas that have been established in violation of rights. These violations have been the main driving force behind a rights-based approach to conservation that not only guarantees that human rights will not be violated, but also recognises the historical role that human rights have played in conservation, thus giving it a new meaning. Respect for human rights also entails the implementation of real solutions that play an important role in overcoming the climate crisis and the loss and disappearance of biodiversity. If the right to land and territory is respected, historical practices such as the territories conserved by IPLC will develop more fully and we will have better conditions for biodiversity, respect for rights and justice.

Nature and culture: connectivity and rights

Ana Di Pangracio , Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales

Biodiversity and culture are deeply intertwined. Livelihoods and ways of life, values, knowledges, beliefs and practices are closely linked to biodiversity. CBD COP 15 heads to renew its commitment to the Joint Programme of Work (JPW) between the CBD Secretariat and the UNESCO on the links between biological and cultural diversity, including Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), taking a whole-of-society view, and an integrated approach with full respect for human rights, including the collective rights of IPLCs, fully incorporating the added value of biocultural diversity and strengthening the links between biological and cultural diversity towards living in harmony with nature.

A group of South American organizations within the framework of the “Wetlands without Borders”  Programme (1), with focus on the La Plata basin, have been working hand in hand with rural, peri-urban and urban communities to promote biocultural corridors. Connectivity is a relevant issue in Target 3 to ensure effective and responsible systems of conserved and protected areas. Corridors have been usually limited to biological ones to facilitate the connection between protected areas and buffer zones and to avoid the so feared "island effect". The term "biocultural" seeks to overcome the dualism between nature and culture. Bioculturalism opens the door to a multifaceted approach when implementing global biodiversity targets at a national and regional scale.

When applied to corridors, the biocultural approach allows ecosystems and communities to remain connected, favors the continuity of ecological processes, involving histories, practices and expressions of their inhabitants. They also contribute to healthy ecosystems, ecological restoration and socio-ecologically responsible productive and residential uses. Identified and promoted in a participatory manner with communities, biocultural corridors fully apply key guiding principles such as: a human rights-based approach, gender approach, intercultural perspective, intergenerational equity, landscape and ecosystem approach and access rights, among others. They are closely related to GBF Targets 1, 2, 3, 10, 12, 14, 21, and 22, to name a few. Actively addressing the close link between cultural and natural heritage needs to be reaffirmed at the CBD and reflected in a post-2020 GBF that will bring renewed commitments to biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and restoration.

Brazilian intransigence on biotech is a violation of human rights

Barbara Pilz, Naomi Kosmehl and Adam Breasley, Save Our Seeds

Unlike synthetic biology, Brazilian intransigence on biotech is not a new and emerging issue. Successive administrations have been enabling the destruction of the Amazon and its stewards through the approval of GMOs and deregulation of synthetic biology applications. Brazil has become a dumping ground for pesticides and a gateway for exploitative biotechnology, including experiments with GMO mosquitoes on Brazilian communities without their free, prior and informed consent. In the last decade alone, Brazil approved around 1500 new pesticides, including many banned elsewhere. This violates not only Brazilians human rights to health, food and clean water but contributes to the genocide of Brazil’s indigenous peoples and poisoning of local communities.

 The Brazilian delegation here at COP15 is disingenuously arguing that synthetic biology is not a new and emerging issue and proposes to postpone it to a future COP. This happens at a time when Brazil already has legislation allowing many synthetic biology applications to go  unregulated. In 2018 Brazil became the first country to adopt legislation paving the way for environmental release of gene drive organisms, as they excluded new genetic technologies from being considered LMOs and thereby removing them from regulatory oversight and risk assessment. Ending the destruction of the Amazon and defending the human rights of Brazil’s indigenous peoples were key messages from Brazil’s incoming government’s participation at the climate COP in Egypt. Will the incoming government also step up at COP15 to protect threats to biodiversity and human rights?

Target 3 and indicators

Friedrich Wulf, Friends of the Earth Europe

One of the most enigmatic and heavily discussed targets of the GBF to be is the one on protected areas, dubbed 30 by 30 before it is even clear if this number will be agreed in the end. Drawing on Aichi Target 11, the target is not only on the quantity, but also on the quality of the areas – it is about effectively managed, ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas, and this part of the target is undisputed. The same applies to the wording “respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities” at the very end.

Along with the need to recognize the importance of areas maintained by Indigenous peoples and local communities, these are all important elements, and we hope that they will remain in the final version of the target. However, how will this be monitored and ensured? The suggested Headline indicator for target 3 is “Coverage of protected areas and OECMS, by effectiveness, KBAs & ecosystems”. There are several problems with this: 1) While the indicator can be disaggregated, there may be many areas on which there is not much of the information other than the area – nevertheless they will be counted towards the target. 2) Even if disaggregated, the indicator does not report on human rights. This means paper parks without proper management and cause people’s eviction can be counted in.

We propose several options to solve this problem:

1. Have a stand-alone Headline indicator on respecting human rights (e.g. number of countries where human rights have been ignored when setting up protected areas) in addition.
2. Include “by governance type” in the proposed Headline indicator to reflect the importance of IPCS areas.
3. Only count areas towards the 30% which are demonstrably effectively managed AND equitably governed AND respect human rights.