Vince Cinches & Shuang An (World Animal Protection)
Biodiversity policies often treat animals primarily as resources to manage, with too little attention to their welfare and the wider impacts of their use. At CBD COP17, governments can change this by making animal welfare and One Health part of biodiversity protection.
The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) cannot deliver its goals without addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss. Habitat destruction, land-use change, industrial animal agriculture and harmful commercial wildlife exploitation put pressure on animals, ecosystems and communities. These problems are connected, and tackling them separately will not deliver lasting solutions.
This raises an important question: Can wildlife use genuinely be called sustainable if it causes animal suffering, damages ecosystems or creates risks to animal and human health?
Sustainable use is often interpreted too narrowly, focusing on species populations and whether activities are legally permitted. But legality does not automatically make wildlife use humane, safe or sustainable.
We need a broader approach that considers animal welfare, ecosystem health, public health and impacts on communities. This must also recognise the rights, knowledge and customary sustainable use of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, while challenging harmful commercial exploitation.
The GBF provides opportunities to advance this approach. Targets 4,5 and 9 address wildlife conservation and sustainable use, with Target 5 explicitly addressing pathogen spillover risk. Targets 8, 10, and 16 link biodiversity to climate change, agriculture, and consumption, while Target 18 offers opportunities to reform harmful subsidies and incentives.
One Health is central to this discussion, but it must go beyond disease surveillance and outbreak response.
If we’re serious about prevention, we need to address the conditions creating these risks. That means protecting habitats, improving animal welfare and changing harmful practices in wildlife exploitation and industrial animal agriculture.
One Health must be grounded in equity and social justice. Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and small-scale producers often bear the heaviest consequences of biodiversity loss and environmental damage, despite having limited influence over decisions that affect their livelihoods.
These considerations should shape biodiversity financing. Public and private funding must support prevention, habitat protection and restoration rather than reinforce practices that harm animals and ecosystems. Financing should reach communities, strengthen their role in conservation and support just transitions toward sustainable alternatives.
At COP17, governments should integrate animal welfare and a preventive One Health approach into biodiversity policies, apply precaution to potentially harmful wildlife use, reform incentives driving biodiversity loss and ensure communities have the resources and decision-making power to shape solutions.
Protecting biodiversity is not simply about maintaining wildlife populations for future use. It means preventing harm, protecting rights and changing the systems driving biodiversity loss.