Convention on Biological Diversity. What you need to know and why it matters

You have probably heard of the UN Convention on Climate Change, which emerged from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. What is less well known is that two further conventions were also born at the summit: the Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The three were always intended to be implemented together as humankind’s response to the global environmental crisis. The aims of the CBD, which has been ratified by almost every country on the planet, are the conservation of nature, the sustainable use of its products (for example timber from rainforests) and the sharing of benefits fairly by everyone.

Every two years, states that have joined the CBD meet in a “Conference of the Parties” (COP), the global decision-making body that oversees implementation of the convention. This year’s meeting is the 17th – known as COP17. In 2022, in response to challenges including massive-scale deforestation and extinction-level declines in the populations of many species, CBD’s COP15 agreed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework which sets out 23 targets for nature conservation.

Why is biodiversity important for human rights?

Thriving biodiversity is an essential component of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, recognized by the UN in 2022.

Life depends on biodiversity. All living species are interdependent, and the decline or extinction of one species can create a chain reaction resulting in a disastrous crop failure, imbalances favouring a significant predator, or the spread of new and dangerous diseases. A large proportion of medicines which prevent or cure serious diseases are developed following discoveries in the natural world.

Biodiversity is also central to the right to culture. All human cultures are rooted in our relationship with the world around us, including landscapes, rivers, oceans and non-human species; this is evidenced in livelihoods, craft practices, folk tales, songs and spiritual beliefs around the world. Culture is not simply about traditions that people inherit and preserve, but a whole way of life that is continually created and changed through everyday relationships with nature. Biodiversity loss therefore threatens not only existing cultural practices, but people’s ability to develop new knowledge and ways of being in the world.

Threats to ocean biodiversity include deep sea mining, ocean warming and sea level rise and acidification. These can have catastrophic impacts on coastal and fisher communities.

What is the 30×30 target?

The most well-known target of the Kunming-Montreal framework is known as 30 by 30 (or 30×30). This sets a target for states to set aside 30% of land and ocean surface as protected areas for nature conservation by 2030. These can take different forms but in general they involve identifying and delimiting a specific area, usually already home to significant biodiversity, and placing restrictions (in some cases complete bans) on activities such as construction, logging, fishing, hunting and gathering, and extractive industries.

One of the issues with this target is that in many cases it takes nature conservation away from the communities that have been practising it for centuries. Instead, conservation is led by national governments and “Big Green” NGOs, who impose technocratic and often militarized techniques over the local scientific knowledge of the original inhabitants.

Protected areas create income-generating opportunities for those that control them, through tourism revenue as well as carbon and biodiversity credits. This increases the incentives for stronger actors to displace or disenfranchise the original inhabitants. By making these areas empty of humans, they often become easier prey to poachers, illegal loggers, and non-state armed groups.

How are Indigenous Peoples affected by these kinds of targets?

A significant issue with the 30×30 target is that protected areas very often result in human rights violations committed against Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities and other rural and peasant communities. They may be forced out with inadequate or no compensation – a discredited model referred to as “fortress conservation”; or allowed to continue living in the protected area, but with restrictions on livelihoods and movements which are often enforced arbitrarily and violently.

In this way, the very communities that cohabited with non-human species in these areas, often developing sophisticated cultural worldviews and practices built around sustainable interaction with the biodiversity that was intended to be protected, are excluded from participation in nature conservation.

In response, leaders and activists from the affected communities step up to challenge these violations. They are often then criminalized, subjected to sexual abuse, and even killed, in many cases with impunity.

Do civil society and Indigenous Peoples participate in the COP?

Civil society groups and Indigenous Peoples face many barriers to participating and even speaking at COP.

Companies and industry associations have massively stepped up their lobbying to counter and roll back biodiversity protections, which they see as limiting their business opportunities. To do this, they turn up in large numbers at the COPs, and take up space that could be used for the voices of affected communities.

Daria Egereva, an Indigenous leader from the Selkup People in Russia, has participated in many CBD meetings but will not be there this year as she has been imprisoned, labelled a terrorist for her peaceful work defending Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

How will the cost of biodiversity protection be funded?

Lower-income countries have proposed that the majority of funding should come from high-income nations. They argue that not only did they lack these funds but that the crisis itself was largely caused by centuries of unchecked ecological destruction by high-income countries. This principle is enshrined in Article 20.2 of the convention. Many activists and leaders from Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities note that the issue of funding should be understood denounce what is referred to as green colonialism; the continuation of colonial practices of subjugation and expropriation of their resources and territories. In this framing, the “big green” NGOs can be seen as one element in the continuation of these dynamics.

However, at COP15, there was no concrete commitment to provide such funding from higher income countries, and the Kunming-Montreal framework was only secured by ignoring this call. In the recent context of higher income countries cutting back on development aid and re-routing state finances to defence spending, this funding is still insufficient.

More importantly, a commitment by states to channel at least 20% of funding for biodiversity protection directly to the communities that live on the areas to be protected, has not been realized. Instead, much of government funding goes to projects which violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples to give their free, prior and informed consent to those projects, and the right to participate in decision-making of racialized and peasant communities.

How are Indigenous Peoples fighting back?

Representatives of Indigenous Peoples as well as racialized and peasant communities put up a strong fight at COP15 to ensure there were robust human rights protections in the Kunming-Montreal framework. This includes for example, “recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories” in the 30×30 target.

In protected areas, affected peoples and communities are fighting back to counter human rights violations. These include attacks on community members by national park guards, forced displacement of their communities, denial of access to sites of spiritual importance and herbal medicines, disregard of the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent, and criminalization of land defenders.

What would be a fair solution that benefits everyone?

In order for both the environment and communities to be protected, Indigenous Peoples as well as racialized and peasant communities’ rights to continue living on their lands should be respected. Their right to continue sustainable practices of care for non-human species, rooted in generations of local scientific knowledge, should be preserved.

Also, the right of communities and peoples that have been forcibly displaced from protected areas to return to their lands should be respected and implemented as a means of reparation. Time and time again, research by academics and international institutions has demonstrated that where these land rights are properly respected and implemented, biodiversity has a better chance of flourishing.

What is Amnesty International doing?

Amnesty International has documented human rights violations connected to fortress conservation in Cambodia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda and on the Brazil/Paraguay border, and campaigned for justice for the affected communities. A delegate attended COP15 and will be present at COP 17, advocating to improve human rights safeguards, and raising awareness of the stories of Indigenous activists present at the conference.

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