Dear Madam, Sir,

We are writing you to express our deep concern about the process regarding Mainstreaming, which currently violates several of the principles of a Party driven process. So far drafting the Long-Term Approach to Mainstreaming (LTAM) and its 'Action plan' has been conducted in an untransparent and unbalanced way. The way forward as proposed in draft SBI text SBI-3-13 would perpetuate this situation.

Moreover, due to the postponement of item 11 until the plenary of 28th May, it seems likely that there will not be time to set up a contact group on the topic, thus probably removing the possibility for Parties to address this important issue with the attention it deserves.

Even though the Informal Advisory Group has an equal number of parties as observers, the process still involves two fundamental problems:

  1. The IAG was complemented with the Extended Consultative Network, which was not a COP decision, and which includes a number of participants with a conflict of interest. There has been no transparency regarding the contributions of the ECN, although it is clear many comments have been taken on board
  2. Furthermore, a small group of parties -however balanced- cannot be the only ones to address a topic which decision 14.3 said ‘should be one of the key elements of the GBF’. The topic is indeed of key importance and deserves the full attention of all parties.

The draft recommendation SBI-3-13 proposes to continue the IAG, and to continue to promote, expand and provide support to the Global Partnership on Business and Biodiversity. There is - yet again - no clarity on the continuity or role of the ECN.

This proposal would continue the exclusion of most Parties from this fundamentally important decision, and allow the undue influence of interests that wish to avoid regulation and measures vital for addressing biodiversity destruction. Due to these conflicts of interest, they should not be part of the drafting nor decision making process.

Flawed processes lead to flawed results. And indeed, we find abundant problems in the LTAM and its action plan. We will gladly provide our views on these aspects, as well as more information which is available here.

Instead of continuing with the current process as above, we call for the discussions on mainstreaming to now be taken up as a matter of urgency by all parties to the CBD in an open and concerted process.