COP16: Traditional Knowledge and Ecosystem Restoration

As mentioned previously, I decided that I would be focusing on Working Group 1 for this COP in order to be better positioned to discuss how Parties come to agreement and how those agreements break down. The morning meeting focused on financial mechanisms, such as Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF). This second meeting already showed enough areas of disagreement that another contact group was struck. Canada claims to be the first contributor to the GBFF and encourages others to do the same if they are in the position to do so. Proposals for the creation of new funds had been made and Canada, along with several other Parties, would like these new proposals to be deleted from the final decision. As Canada says, "From Canada’s perspective, it is very clear that, any discussion related to a new fund or financial mechanism, should include a discussion on which countries would be contributors to such a new fund or financial mechanism." China believes GEF has gaps that put unnecessary strain on developing countries. The United Kingdom and New Zealand are against the recommendation to strike a standing committee for the financial mechanism. South Africa urges funding for biosafety and Japan also notes "the lack of capacity to design biosafety proposals and procedural difficulties." Uganda urges that "Without adequate, predictable and timely provision of financial resources the KMGBF will remain a good framework, but on the shelves." In the end, the three hours were spent with Parties reading statements on where they stood on these issues, but there would be no discussion of these items until the meeting of the contact group.

My participation at working groups was broken up with attendance at another Women4Biodiversity (W4B) event, this one called Restore HER Rights: Global Insights and Case Studies 2024. The amazing women speakers, ranging from all over the world, including Myanmar, Kenya, Argentina, and the Solomon Islands, presented on the ways that women in their communities support restoration by fighting to protect their land and traditional knowledge, ensuring food security and reforestation. They spoke of the need for data collection to prove their legitimacy, as well as financial support as loggers and miners come in with money, presenting a challenge for women. There is also a need to include livelihood security for these women, as they do not have the luxury of working without compensation. W4B focused on four key ecosystems: forests, mangroves, wetlands, and sand dunes. The purpose was to spotlight gender-responsive ecosystem restoration approaches and document women-led ecosystem restoration initiatives. An executive summary along with six case studies of the project were shared.

I returned to Working Group 1 by attending the contact group for the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Article 8(j), Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices, where discussions revolved around wordsmithing each element. Where there was no consensus, the original text was given along with an alternative text, and no other alterations or alternatives were accepted unless absolutely necessary. There was much debate on whether or not to list direct drivers of biodiversity loss; an hour was spent debating the wording of this single element and still no agreement was reached. The general practice seems to be that, if text cannot be agreed upon, it is deleted and the Parties insist that it be noted that it was a compromise in the spirit of moving forward.

Attending these discussions allowed me to see at this early stage how and why these agreements break down, particularly when Parties come to a compromise, but expressly note that they are not particularly happy with the compromise made. The purpose of a compromise is not simply to move forward; these agreements will hopefully conserve the biodiversity of the planet by 2030, then 2050 and beyond. The agreements and outcomes have to be binding, because the alternative cost will ultimately be too high for the entire world to pay. It will be very informative to follow how these texts are formulated and created over the next two weeks.