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This week, U.N. leaders are again coming together to discuss biodiversity. And food systems are—finally—playing a central role in the discussions.
This year’s biodiversity conference, COP15, is a big one, too—delegations from 196 countries are meeting to discuss a global framework through 2030. It’s a “once-in-a-decade opportunity,” WWF writes.
The rhetoric surrounding this conference is strong. At the conference’s opening ceremony, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction. This conference is our chance to stop this orgy of destruction.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau points out, “There are lots of disagreements between governments. But if we can’t agree as a world on something as fundamental as protecting nature, then nothing else matters.”
I’m glad to see world leaders thinking about biodiversity, especially in relation to food, but thoughts alone aren’t enough. So as always, here’s my key question: Are they actually committed to making the policy changes we need?
Because our planet needs action—desperately. A WWF report from this year finds that wildlife populations have experienced a 69 percent average decline since 1970, with the most pronounced impacts in the Global South. An increasing proportion of our land and water resources are being devoted toward an ever-less genetically diverse set of crops and livestock, making our food systems even more vulnerable to pests, the climate crisis, loss of cultural heritage, and more.
“We’ve been taking nature for granted for so long,” said Marco Lambertini, the Director General of WWF. “We’ve been taking, extracting, using. And with population growth, with overconsumption in some of the regions of the world, and with formidable technology progress, the pressure of our food systems on the natural world has grown exponentially over the last few decades.”
As the conference progresses, I’m disappointed that we haven’t seen major breakthroughs on substantive policy so far.
“Overall, one will say good progress,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a U.N. leader who oversees the global treaty agreement on biodiversity that underscores this conference, told Africa News. “But if you look at specifically the global biodiversity framework, negotiations [are] still a bumpy road.”
I’m also keeping a close eye on discussions surrounding the 30×30 agenda, which Food Tank covered here. It calls for protecting 30 percent of the land and sea by 2030—but Indigenous groups are concerned that conservation movements could lead to human rights abuses and displacement of Indigenous peoples from their homelands. We’re seeing some language at the biodiversity conference around “rights-based conservation,” and I hope world leaders understand that it is simply non-negotiable that Indigenous peoples and local communities are respected and valued as protectors of their lands.
And I’m pleased to see food systems are playing a central role, just as they did at the climate conference in Egypt. This week there was a food-focused day at the biodiversity conference, with programming dedicated to highlighting the reality that reversing biodiversity loss is only possible alongside transformations in food production, agriculture systems, land use, and more.
“Deeply connected with protecting biodiversity is the land, and making sure we no longer exploit it. We need to actually restore it,” said Brent Loken, the Global Food Lead Scientist at WWF, whose analysis I always admire.
The event was co-organized by a stellar group of partners including WWF, U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Environmental Defense Fund, the FAIRR Initiative, Crop Trust, TMG, CGIAR/Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, Equilibrium Research, Plantlife and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.
So keep a close eye on Montreal—our future depends on the decisions made there. And let me know your thoughts at [email protected]. I’ll write to you again next week, but I’d love to keep the conversation going until then.
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Photo courtesy of Alenka Skvarc, Unsplash
