CBD COP12 – Key outcomes

COP12logoAfter 2 weeks of discussions, side events, the CBD COP 12 was closed last Friday – October 17th, 2014.

Even if I have not been there, I want to share with you key outcomes that had been highlighted by the European Commission and WWF.

As per the main theme of the meetings, discussions and commitments confirmed the importance to fully integrate Biodiversity into the Sustainable Development goals. As you know my opinion, this is obvious but this is important for us, actors in sustainable development and biodiversity, that this is clearly stated.

WWF recalls that “Biodiversity and ecosystem services guarantee human health, well-being and social stability, and provide the foundation of prosperity, including jobs, food, water, and healthy soils. Forest ecosystems alone contribute US$ 720 billion to the global economy. And wetlands provide us with clean water, while oceans give us sustenance.

Here are the key outcomes highlighted by WWF and the European Commission:

  • Progress has been made but business as usual will not achieve the Aichi targets by 2020. Reports Global Biodiversity Outlook 4.
  • National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP): a lot of the parties are late in reporting against their NBSAP. However, it had been decided that parties shall develop and measure indicators by October 2015 to monitor progress towards their NBSAP and shall already start preparing their 5th report to the CBD Secretariat.
  • A key aspect of working towards biodiversity conservation and sustainable use is the funding opportunities. In this sense, it is a positive first step that all Parties agreed to mobilize domestic financial resources from all sources to reduce the gap on financing their respective NBSAP. However, access to funding remains a big constraint for parties to develop, monitor their NBSAP and other actions.
  • Clarity on wording: use of the terminology “indigenous peoples and local communities” (Article 8J of the Nagoya Protocol). This wording does not impact the text but gives clarity to who we are talking about while working on Access and Benefit Sharing.
  • As already released, another important outcome is the entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol on October 12th.

With regards to Biodiversity and Finance, I found an article from a French media that highlights the risk of giving too much “finance” sense to biodiversity as an easy way to mitigate countries and industries’ impact instead of finding solutions and developing long-term alternatives to biodiversity uses. Read more here.

Let’s continue our journey towards sustainable use of biodiversity, let’s try to change our business as usual practices to better integrate these values while creating, guaranteeing business sense.

Source:

WWF Statement on CBD COP12

European Commission Press Release

Read more about COP 12 in my previous posts:

Upcoming CBD COP12 – Biodiversity for Sustainable Development

http://www.biodivsourcing.com/nagoya-protocol-entered-into-force/