SBI 7

Urgent course correc,on needed for a planet in crisis

CBD Alliance SBI 7 Closing statement

When Development Overlaps with Biodiversity Matters

Azka Syamila, Action for Ecology and People Emancipation - Mainstreaming biodiversity within and across sectors is the key to the implementation of KMGBF, particularly in planning and managing development that drives land-use change, such as the development of extractive industry. Target 1 calls on Parties to ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning. Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) provide spatial datasets that help governments and stakeholders to identify and map where conservation priorities lie. However, one of the main challenges in implementing this target is when extractive industry’s concessions have been allocated without consideration of biodiversity matters, resulting in overlaps between extractive industry’s concessions and KBAs.

On [“actors other than national governments”]

Xilonem Clarke, Forest Peoples Programme & Josefa Tauli, Global Youth Biodiversity Network - When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. After its humble origins in a decision on PMRR on communicating voluntary commitments, the term “actors other than national Governments” has started making its way into SBSTTA and SBI decisions on Item 3. It has slowly proliferated across several SBI draft decisions, a  seductive alternative to difficult paragraphs on long days. Unfortunately, it creates more problems that it solves. We are already foreseeing decisions that are confusing, vague, imprecise, invisibilizing for marginalized groups, and that speak to everyone and no one in particular. Our policies risk becoming invitations without an addressee, a shout into the void, a shapeless blob. 

Doing less harm to nature is also GBF implementation

Ermelinda Mahmutaj, Environmental Centre for Development, Educa8on and Networking (EDEN), Albania - The Vjosë-Narta test: when governments choose more harm. Despite activities spurred by the adoption of the KMGBF in 2022, the world still isn’t on track to reach the 2030 targets. More needs to be done: more efforts to update the NBSAPs, to implement them, more collaboration and more resources. But “doing less” can be just as important: less damage to nature, less pollution, less harmful subsidies.

Biodiversity finance cannot come from the sale of “permits to destroy”

Mirna Ines Fernández Pradel, Third World Network - A lot of the discussions in SBI7 have revolved around the various biodiversity finance mechanisms that are proposed with the aim of closing the biodiversity finance gap. While it is true that biodiversity conservation and restoradon are still underfunded, especially in countries in the Global South, global efforts to raise the finance is needed to achieve the global biodiversity targets cannot overlook the impacts that these finance mechanisms have on ecosystems and human rights. 

A lot of the discussions in SBI7 have revolved around the various biodiversity finance mechanisms that are proposed with the aim of closing the biodiversity finance gap.

While it is true that biodiversity conservation and restoradon are still underfunded, especially in countries in the Global South, global efforts to raise the finance is needed to achieve the global biodiversity targets cannot overlook the impacts that these finance mechanisms have on ecosystems and human rights. 

Carbon and biodiversity offsetting have been used for decades to compensate for carbon emissions and biodiversity damage caused elsewhere, and then tied to claims such as “net zero” or “no net loss”. In the mitigation hierarchy approach, offsetting is the last step that should be pursued after all efforts to avoid, minimize and restore are exhausted. But in reality, companies that destroy biodiversity usually
jump straight to offsetting because it is cheaper than investing in cleaner technologies that cause less destruction.

Worldwide, offsetting projects have numerous documented problems concerning baseline-manipulation, additionality, leakage, and permanence; besides large scandals portraying phantom offsets and human rights violations. None of the major internationally agreed frameworks for payments for ecosystem services (PES), green bonds, nature-based solutions (NbS), nor biodiversity credits impose a blanket ban on offsetting. Therefore, all these financial mechanisms can potentially rely on the sale of permits to further destroy ecosystems.

Trillions of US dollars flow every year towards biodiversity-destructive activities. The main priority in the mobilization of global biodiversity finance should be based on the redirection of these perverse finance flows, not on the few millions committed to mechanisms that have proven ineffective for long enough.

The Vjosë-Narta test: when governments choose more harm

Despite activities spurred by the adoption of the KMGBF in 2022, the world still isn’t on track to reach the 2030 targets. More needs to be done: more efforts to update the NBSAPs, to implement them, more collaboration and more resources. But “doing less” can be just as important: less damage to nature, less pollution, less harmful subsidies.

Albania, a vibrant Mediterranean country, is an example of a country that still holds unspoiled nature. It is home to the Vjosa, one of the last free-flowing rivers in Europe, protected as a National Park. At the river’s mouth lies one of the country’s most valuable coastal ecosystems: the Vjosë-Narta protected landscape, an extraordinary mosaic of lagoons, wetlands, dunes, salt marshes and riverine forests. It provides habitat to many endangered and endemic species, including flamingos, monk seals and loggerhead sea turtles. Its sandy shores protect an inland lagoon, a major migratory site for hundreds of rare birds. It is also a living landscape shaped by local tradition. More than 20 villages remain closely connected to agriculture, livestock, fishing, coastal tourism, beekeeping and other ecosystem-dependent activities.

While implementing the GBF, it is expected from the Albanian government to recognize the importance of protecting Vjosë-Narta. The area is of major conservation importance at the European level: it has been proposed for the Emerald Network under the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention and as a future Natura 2000 site. As Albania works towards EU membership, it must also align its national legislation with EU environmental law.

Unfortunately, the opposite is happening! In 2024, the government changed Albania’s nature protection legislation legalizing high-end tourism development in protected areas, under the concept of ‘tourism of excellence’. Influential American and Qatari billionaires have seized the opportunity. Now, Vjosë-Narta risks to be turned into an exclusive luxury real estate, and its fragile ecosystems destroyed. This case signals the potential fate of all protected areas in the country. While the government consented, citizens wonder who will benefit.

As governments meet in Nairobi to review progress on the KMGBF, Vjosë-Narta tests what implementation really means. Global biodiversity targets ultimately succeed or fail through national planning and investment decisions. The real test comes when highly bio-diverse areas face major development pressures and governments decide to do more damage, rather than less.

Turning a highly valuable ecosystem (accessible for everyone) into a luxury resort (accessible only to a wealthy few) has caused citizens to take to the streets in protest. Albanian CSOs have called the Parliament to immediately repeal the 2024 protected areas legal amendments, adopt a new law through a transparent and participatory process, and impose a moratorium of all development permits in protected areas until aligned with EU and IUCN standards is in place.

It remains unclear if this destruction of valuable nature can be stopped. What is clear, is that Albania`s nature legislaon goes against KMGBF targets 3 and 14. The Vjosë-Narta case also carries a wider lesson: global biodiversity commitments will fail if short-term economic interests of a few block the long-term sustainable developments for many."

When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one

After its humble origins in a decision on PMRR on communicating voluntary commitments, the term “actors other than national Governments” has started making its way into SBSTTA and SBI decisions on Item 3. It has slowly proliferated across several SBI draft decisions, a  seductive alternative to difficult paragraphs on long days. Unfortunately, it creates more problems that it solves. We are already foreseeing decisions that are confusing, vague, imprecise, invisibilizing for marginalized groups, and that speak to everyone and no one in particular. Our policies risk becoming invitations without an addressee, a shout into the void, a shapeless blob. 

In drafting the KMGBF, Parties deliberately chose language to distinguish the specific ways that different actors, groups of people, and institutions should be involved in its implementation. They did the complicated work of identifying (and agreeing!) where Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women, youth, the private sector, academia, and others fit in our global plan. The Framework laid out the distinct roles, rights, contributions, areas of expertise, and it recognized that without their participation, the biodiversity crisis cannot be addressed. “Actors other than national Governments” risks undoing some of this good work.

Behind these taxonomies are real people doing the work. They are rights-holders, experts in their own right, with different needs, priorities and roles. 

Governments cannot do this alone. The biodiversity crisis demands collective action. The Framework needs the Indigenous Peoples who care for their lands and waters, the environmental defenders on the frontlines against illegal logging and mining, the youth who mobilize, the women who farm, the funders, the observers at the CBD providing advice to Parties. If we are to address the still growing biodiversity crisis,  we will require the knowledge, networks, creativity, sweat and good will of all of these actors to be brought to the table.

The task ahead Bracketing of “actors other than national Governments” was the right thing to do, and delegates have been given some homework by the co-chairs: go back to your constituencies and your capitals, speak to the youth, the women, the Indigenous Peoples, the local communities, the persons with disabilities, the real people you represent. Understand their distinct needs, priorities, roles, and expertise. And come to Yerevan ready to craft decisions that resonate with them, that speak to them, that recognize them. Not decisions that cover these groups and Parties in a thick fog that hides the path to achieving our vision of living in harmony with nature.