Written by Agroecology Fund Advisor Lim Li Ching, Senior Researcher, Third World Network and Co-chair, IPES-Food

The 16th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, was suspended on 2 November 2024 after running overtime. While some key decisions were adopted, several important agenda items, such as mobilizing financial resources for biodiversity and monitoring the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), were not finalized. A resumed meeting will be required to address these issues.

At the same time, agriculture and food system issues received less attention in the official negotiations, yet featured prominently at side events and other spaces. There, the clarion call was clear: Agroecology is fundamental to achieving biodiversity objectives, including the KMGBF targets, and much more support, policy attention and action is needed to make this happen.

The ‘COP of the People’

COP16 was dubbed the ‘COP of the People’ by the Colombian government, which sought to emphasize citizen participation. It included a ‘Green Zone’ designed for public engagement, featuring hundreds of events aimed at promoting biodiversity protection. This open space allowed for extensive dialogue and knowledge-sharing, complementing the formal negotiations. 

In addition to attending the official conference, many peasants and other small-scale food producers participated in Green Zone events, including significant convenings by Colombian groups prior to COP16. They highlighted the role of peasants, Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the importance of agroecology, food sovereignty, land rights and other rights in galvanising food system transformation. They also opposed industrial and fossil-fuel reliant agriculture, and the corporate capture of food and farming systems.

Agroecology Fund grantee partner FENSUAGRO participated in the Green Zone. Germán Martínez spoke about Rural Reform and Daniela Vega, representing young farmers, highlighting the importance of the new generations in food sovereignty and conservation. 

Learn more about Agroecology Fund long-term partner La Via Campesina’s position on COP 16 here. 

Agroecology integral to meeting biodiversity targets 

COP16 reviewed the implementation of the KMGBF, which was adopted in 2022. By the end of the conference, 119 countries had submitted national biodiversity targets and 44 countries had submitted updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) ‘aligned’ with the KMGBF. This marks some progress in the global effort to meet the framework’s goals and targets.

Peasants and other small-scale food producers and supporting organizations have long pointed out that agroecology is central to the achievement of many of the KMGBF targets. Agroecology is a holistic and transformative approach to food systems that is based on biodiversity and agricultural biodiversity. It covers the gamut from production to consumption, and includes socio-political aspects such as participation, agency, rights and equity.

Agroecology is specifically mentioned in the ‘agriculture’ target (Target 10) where a call is made for “substantial increase of the application of biodiversity friendly practices, such as… agroecological… approaches…”.  It is also key to the target of reducing the overall risk from pesticides, by at least half, by 2030 (Target 7). This is because of the non-use of synthetic pesticides in agroecology, which instead depends on ecological interactions to control pests and diseases. 

Agroecology is also relevant to many other targets central to conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, as well as essential to the rights-based approach of the KMGBF. Thus, as a matter of priority, agroecology should be integrated and mainstreamed into NBSAPs, so that implementation at the national level can be accomplished. 

During COP 16, Agroecology Fund partners and allies Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the Agroecology Coalition and others, launched new guidance to support national KMGBF implementation while ensuring coherence between biodiversity and food systems policies. 

Read “Boosting Biodiversity Action Through Agroecology.”  

Agroecology Fund long-term grantee partner Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa shares the highs and lows of their time in Cali in this reflection. Their hot take: “Against all odds, agroecology is gaining momentum, not just in niche discussions but across the global biodiversity stage.”

Advances for rights and benefit sharing 

Several groundbreaking decisions were made at COP16, particularly regarding Indigenous Peoples and local communities and peoples of African descent. Many of these communities practice agroecology, and play an important role in conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, including through their traditional knowledge, innovations and practices. 

These decisions were celebrated as historic, especially the creation of a new permanent subsidiary body on traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in relation to biodiversity. They had long advocated for such a body, which will now operate on par with the other subsidiary bodies of the CBD.

Agroecology Fund long-term partner International Indian Treaty Council has consistently advocated for Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights in the CBD and COP processes. With Agroecology Fund support, they sent a delegation to Cali and participated in a powerful side event, “Launching Indigenous Peoples Principles and Protocols for a Just Transition.” 

Another significant decision was the recognition of Afro-descendant communities and their role in biodiversity conservation. There are an estimated 200 million such people living in Latin America and the Caribbean, mostly descendants of slaves that were brought to the Americas during its brutal colonial period. 

This decision, made at the end of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024), acknowledges and promotes the contributions of people of African descent in biodiversity protection. It is an important step towards racial justice for these historically marginalized communities. 

Additionally, COP16 saw the adoption of a decision on the use of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources. It mandates that large companies, including from the biotechnology and animal/plant breeding sectors, which benefit from DSI use, contribute a percentage of their profits or revenues to the newly established ‘Cali Fund’. 

The aim is to ensure that benefits are more equitably shared with developing countries and Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Nonetheless, how the decision is implemented in the coming years will determine whether sufficient benefits will really be generated and shared equitably.

Disagreements over biodiversity credits and offsets

One controversial issue at COP16 was the use and promotion of biodiversity credits and offsets. While not formally on the agenda, the KMGBF included these “innovative schemes” to increase financial resources for biodiversity protection. The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB) launched a “Framework for High Integrity Biodiversity Credits” that aimed to address criticisms of biodiversity credit markets and claimed to “unlock significant financial flows for nature conservation and restoration” for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

However, the promotion of biodiversity credits was met with strong resistance from civil society, which criticized the practice as “greenwashing”, and that it would ultimately lead to biodiversity offsetting schemes. Biodiversity markets will be worse than the failed carbon markets because of the complexities of ecosystems, and the serious negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, they warned. In particular, biodiversity offsetting can create conflicts over tenure rights and the use of lands, fisheries and forests, competing with agroecology and smallholder agriculture, undermining food sovereignty. 

Many organizations argued that these schemes offer false solutions to the biodiversity crisis and allow rich countries, corporate actors and financial institutions to profit from the biodiversity crisis they have created while maintaining the status quo. Over 300 organizations, including many Agroecology Fund grantee partners, signed a statement calling for a halt to the development of biodiversity credits and offsets, emphasizing the need for more effective and equitable non-market-based approaches. In addition, there is an urgent need to recognize and respect, protect and promote the right to land of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, small-scale food producers and women.

Corporate interests taint agriculture debates

One of the decisions that was not adopted, due to the suspension of COP16, was on the monitoring framework of the KMGBF. A key contention was over the headline indicator for the reduction of pesticide risks. An indicator that was developed by an FAO-convened expert group was opposed by CBD Parties that have large agribusiness interests.

The powerful pesticide lobby had been actively mischaracterizing the indicator, claiming that it called for the reduction in the use of pesticides, something that it had persuaded some governments was impossible. Yet, the indicator is one that would necessitate the reduction or phasing out of the most toxic pesticides – reducing risks tremendously – without necessarily affecting volume used. 

Of course, agroecology shows that it is possible to replace hazardous chemical pesticides with bio inputs and other management practices to reduce both the use and risks of pesticides, without significant impacts on productivity, and with positive benefits for the environment and human health.

The same CBD Parties with large agribusiness interests managed to unravel progress previously made on putting in place safeguards around synthetic biology. The multidisciplinary process for broad and regular horizon scanning, monitoring and assessment of the most recent technological developments, established at COP15, was not explicitly continued. 

However, an expert group has been established, which will carry out some of those functions, including identifying potential positive and negative impacts. Many of the applications of synthetic biology are used in agriculture, and in effect, continue the trajectory of genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture. 

The decision also shifts focus to capacity-building and development, access to and transfer of technology and knowledge-sharing, and the development of a thematic action plan for those purposes. These activities should also include the necessary capacities, technologies and knowledge on the assessment of synthetic biology, which would help advance the CBD’s precautionary approach.

Conclusion

COP16 made significant strides in recognizing the rights and roles of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities in biodiversity protection. This necessarily includes peasants and other small-scale food producers. It also saw the adoption of a levy on the revenues or profits from sectors such as the biotechnology industry that benefit from DSI use, to share those benefits more fairly.

Despite this progress, the debates at COP16 also underscored tensions between the demands of civil society and the increasingly business-focused biodiversity agenda. In fact, the number of business representatives and lobbyists registered for COP16 had more than doubled from COP15. The large presence of agrochemical, pesticide, seed and biotech companies, including on some national delegations, is cause for concern. 

Key issues central to the monitoring and implementation of the KMGBF will continue to be negotiated at the resumed COP16 meeting, likely to be in the first quarter of 2025. In any case, implementation at the national level, particularly through NBSAPs, should continue. These more inclusive processes are an opportunity to  help mainstream agroecology as the way forward.