by the CBD Alliance
As we speak today, biodiversity loss continues to accelerate, driven by extractive economic models, industrial agriculture, unsustainable production and consumption, pollution, infrastructure expansion, harmful subsidies and growing corporate control over land, territories and waters.
COP17 must deliver the transformative change envisioned in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). This requires more than better implementation of existing targets. Parties must assess whether the Framework and related measures are effectively addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss and the inequities that sustain them.
The Global Review must be robust, participatory and accountable. It should identify implementation gaps, inadequate means of implementation, harmful incentives and the structural barriers that prevent transformative change. A key challenge is the persistent gap between biodiversity commitments and government decisions that continue to authorise or subsidise biodiversity-destructive activities. To close this gap, the Global Review should explicitly examine these policy and economic drivers and assess how they undermine implementation.
We welcome the important contributions of IPBES through its recent assessments and support the proposal to endorse the transformative change and Nexus assessments.
Addressing biodiversity loss requires strong regulation of destructive industries and corporate actors. Mainstreaming biodiversity cannot rely solely on voluntary commitments and reporting. Governments must adopt and enforce effective regulatory frameworks, ensure environmental accountability, strengthen impact assessment processes, guarantee public participation and access to justice, and support the full and effective engagement of affected communities.
The industrial agribusiness model continues to harm biodiversity, ecosystems, livelihoods and human health. We need a transition to sustainable, equitable and humane food systems based on agroecology and the knowledge of small-scale food producers.
Biodiversity must not be commodified, privatised or financialised. We reject biodiversity offsets, carbon offsets, nature markets and other approaches that enable continued environmental destruction elsewhere.
Developed countries must first fulfil their Article 20 obligations by providing public finance that is new, additional, predictable, adequate, accessible and non-debt-creating. Broadening the contributor base must not dilute those obligations or circumvent the Convention. A permanent financial mechanism must remain under COP authority and ensure direct access for developing countries, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women and youth.
Biodiversity finance must be equitable, rights-based and transformative. It should directly reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women-led organisations and civil society through simplified and fair access mechanisms, meaningful participation in financial decision-making, strong environmental and social safeguards, gender-responsive approaches, transparent accountability and eSective grievance mechanisms. It must support Target 23 and the Gender Plan of Action, while addressing harmful subsidies, unsustainable debt, unjust fiscal systems and financial flows that incentivise environmental destruction, without exacerbating debt burdens or inequalities.
Biological and genetic resources, including digital sequence information (DSI), must be protected from biopiracy and digital biopiracy. Greater transparency, accountability and equitable benefit-sharing are needed, together with safeguards against conflicts of interest in DSI-related processes.
Finally, a precautionary approach must guide consideration of emerging technologies. Synthetic biology poses significant environmental, health and socio-economic risks. Horizon scanning, monitoring, impact assessment and capacity-building are therefore essential to enable informed and sovereign decision-making. We call upon all Parties to immediately cancel any testing of, licenses for, or commercial approval of genetically modified trees and to implement the precautionary principle in good faith.
The people of the world can live in harmony with nature only if Parties address the real drivers and sectors of biodiversity loss. We also stress that the environmental and human consequences of wars and conflicts require urgent international attention. COP17 must reject false solutions, regulate and phase out destructive industries, uphold human rights, secure adequate public finance and deliver the just and transformative change that biodiversity and peoples urgently need.