Governments, civil society, scientists, youth, academia, artists, and media professionals gathered under the theme of "Taking Action for Nature" at COP17 Armenia to bring about collective action on biodiversity protection and nature restoration.

At COP17 Armenia, the first global review of the collective implementation progress of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) was conducted. The KMGBF is structured around 23 global biodiversity targets scheduled for completion by 2030, in alignment with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS).

Targets two and three—which focus on restoring 30% of all degraded ecosystems and conserving and effectively managing 30% of land, waters, and seas, respectively—took precedence during the KMGBF discussions. Significant discourse also centered on how the KMGBF can be financed, how responsible actors and stakeholders can be held accountable, and how its credibility can be ensured.

Discussions also focused on strengthening biosafety by monitoring living modified organisms (LMO), reducing invasive alien species, ensuring compliance and accountability, monitoring and evaluation, and implementing gender equality and a gender-responsive approach for biodiversity action.

Technical experts shared largely similar views regarding biodiversity protection, yet hesitation persists when it comes to mobilizing resources and implementing funding.

The commitment to address these grand questions is present, but the scale, strength, and pace of the decisions are insufficient.

One reason for the situation is the slow implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) adopted by countries around the world. Another factor is current economic and geopolitical trends, whose connection to biodiversity damage is not discussed enough.

The current global biodiversity funding gap stands at $700 billion. Although the GEF-9 Replenishment was announced with new country pledges of close to $4.4 billion, this figure barely scratches the surface of the gap. Meanwhile, the CALI Fund, adopted at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, garnered significant attention. It was initially created to collect private-sector contributions from industries that rely on genetic data in nature, such as big pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and cosmetics giants.

However, voluntary contributions have been measly, and no major corporation contributed to the CALI Fund. Participants mainly focused on discussing ways to ensure fair and equitable commercialisation and benefit-sharing of genetic data.

The polarity of financing perspectives remains a recurring challenge that raises questions. Developing countries are seeking international finance to do the work, while developed countries have urged the diversification of funding sources.

Addressing these challenges involves questioning how to generate financial mechanisms that ensure direct access for local communities, how to combine grants, loans, and other financial instruments to develop those mechanisms, and how to achieve greater transparency throughout these processes.

Target 18 of the KMGBF, which involves reducing incentives and subsidies harmful to biodiversity by at least $500 billion—such as phasing out pesticides—and introducing positive incentives without harming biodiversity, was up for debate and requires great political will.

This also applies to biodiversity-protected areas. There are calls to ensure improved and practical ecosystem development, along with biodiversity protection coordinated with livelihoods, community rights, and equitable governance.

Advocates explained that one approach is to acknowledge the legal rights of nature, noting that ecosystems and species can possess legal rights similar to humans. This places nature as a living entity on equal legal footing with humans rather than as property, as seen in Panama's Rights of Nature Law adopted in 2023.

Corporations harming these rights would be violating the law. Such perspectives and laws can better support conservation and biodiversity protection, although inclusive implementation involving women, youth, and indigenous communities remains important.

Integrating climate action and biodiversity action without duplicating mandates is fundamental if we are to address all three Rio Conventions, which cover climate change, desertification, and biodiversity. However, there was no structured discourse on Rio synergy in the conference.

There were talks about carbon trading and how local communities can participate and benefit from carbon trading marketplaces. If their ownership, stake, and decision-making remain, they can manage natural resources best without overexploitation. It will allow countries to maintain the carbon credit trade and reduce emissions sustainably.

For Bangladesh to make use of this market, mangrove restoration and wetland conservation are great areas to start.

The use of technology and AI in developing biodiversity information systems was met with optimism. Armenia and Colombia jointly committed to finance endangered species conservation through private sector engagement. There is hope to achieve all 23 targets by 2030, but things still do not look too good.

From a Global South perspective, we raised concerns about how biodiversity conservation should complement livelihoods, respect community experiences, and engage people of faith.

We must consider the Rio synergies, and we must ensure multi-stakeholder governance and multilateral cooperation. We urged governments and experts to create a structured method to measure impact on ecosystem recovery, species conservation status, livelihood resilience outcomes, and equitable benefit sharing.

Science should be able to influence policy-making and economics and create tripartite solutions. We have committed to nature, to the world, and to the people with the KMGBF. Without its implementation, we are failing ourselves.

Will the global review lead to stronger, measurable action before 2030? Will biodiversity finance and governance genuinely empower local communities?

The world does not need another declaration of concern about biodiversity loss. While we saw great progress in technical aspects, the success of that progress truly depends on political consensus.

If governments together can adopt these technical perspectives and put them into proper funding pathways, policy, and practice, there is hope for the future of biodiversity.

Kazi Amdadul Hoque is the Senior Director, Strategic Planning & Head of Climate Action at Friendship.

Why it matters

The review highlights critical global biodiversity financing gaps and actionable conservation strategies such as mangrove restoration that directly inform environmental policy in Bangladesh.