On [“actors other than national governments”]

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.