Erin: 0:10

Hello, hello. Welcome to About Sustainability... It's Erin, and I'm enjoying the beautiful fall foliage in Tokyo, Japan. Following our episode on the Convention on Biological Diversity, or CBD, a few months back, my co-host Simon and I caught up with Andre just before his trip to Montreal, Canada, for the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD - a mouthful, but that's the UN Biodiversity Conference or CBD COP15. It's finally happening from the 7th to the 19th of December 2022, though not any more in Kunming, China. China is, however, still the COP15 presidency. After a two-year delay, Parties will finally come together to negotiate and agree on the text of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework or GBF. But there are some significant remaining issues to be ironed out. What might those be? Can you tell us, you know, what's happening with the cop 15. I know that the dates and the venue has finally been decided.

André: 1:20

Yeah. So just as a bit of a recap, it was supposed to- well, the CBD COPs generally happen about every two years.

Erin: 1:29

Mm hmm.

André: 1:29

And this is the 15th one that we're- we're waiting for now. And that was supposed to- if it had stuck to the usual schedule- it would have happened in October 2020. I think it was October, certainly 2020.

Erin: 1:41

Hmm.

André: 1:41

But of course, COVID delayed that like it did so many other things and it kept on delaying it. They kept on pushing the date forward until, eventually, they decided to hold the meeting in two parts and to have the first part to kind of get some of the procedural things out of the way and to allow more time for the second part. And that first part was a hybrid meeting with, I think, the vast majority of people attending online. Like- Like myself.

Erin: 2:08

Mm hmm.

André: 2:08

And that was in Kunming in China, which is where the whole COP was supposed to be. After that meeting was held, I think a couple of additional delays. And then eventually it was announced by the CBD Secretariat that they would convene the meeting in Montreal, which is where the CBD Secretariat is located. So the second and final part of CBD COP15 will be from the 7th to the 19th of December 2022, and then that will also be preceded by the fifth of the Working Group 2020 meetings, which are the meetings that basically formulated the global biodiversity framework. And the reason there are so many of those is because they've been trying to get the text to, you know, as close to complete as possible so that at the COP ,itself, it won't it won't run over time, basically.

Simon: 2:59

Is it China that's chairing it?

André: 3:02

China has the COP presidency, but, physically, it's going to be in Montreal. And that- that venue is literally across the street from the Secretariat.

Erin: 3:11

Are there any implications of that, do you think?

André: 3:14

I'm sure that the hosts wanted to have it in their country. I mean, the whole- you know, a lot is involved in hosting a meeting like this. It's a- it's a major headache. And I can say that from being one of- you know, playing a small role in hosting previous ones in the past. So if you're going to take something like that on, there has to be some payoff because you're not being paid for it. Right? In fact, you're paying to do it. This particular COP, because of the global biodiversity framework, you know, this is the venue where the global biodiversity framework is supposed to be adopted. So, you know, it'll be remembered for that. It'll be remembered as the host of the COP that- that's just like Japan is remembered as the cop that hosted the adoption of the biodiversity targets and the Strategic Plan, which is the precursor to the GBF and the COPs also provide countries with an opportunity to attach their name to different things, like Japan did with Aichi targets. For those who don't know, it is the prefecture where Nagoya is, which is where the COP was held in 2010. And there's the Kunming Declaration, which is kind of a more of a high-level kind of declaration, not part of the negotiations really, but that's something which is being compiled already and attached to the name of the city, to the COP. And there may be there may be other things like that as well.

Erin: 4:32

Interesting. Okay. So let's kind of dive in now to the GBF itself. It's the successor to the Aichi biodiversity targets and the Strategic Plan, which ended in 2020.

André: 4:45

Mm hmm.

Erin: 4:46

And I assume that also tackled the CBD's mandate of conservation, sustainable use, and the sharing of the benefits of biodiversity. Is the GBF going to do the same, and in what ways?

André: 5:02

The way that I would describe it at the elevator pitch level is that those three objectives of the CBD that you just listed there, those are just elaborated on in the Strategic Plan. And again, they are elaborated on and reformulated in the global biodiversity framework.

Erin: 5:18

Mm hmm.

André: 5:19

To some extent it's an update of the Strategic Plan, but perhaps more than that, it's kind of a reformulation of the Strategic Plan because the essence of it, there's- there's not very much that's new because the problems are the same- slightly larger than they were 12 years ago now - it should be ten years, but 12 years ago. So it's not significantly different from the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the Strategic Plan.

Erin: 5:44

Okay. And I think last time we talked about the main headline, you know, everyone's talking about this thing called"30by30".

André: 5:53

Mm hmm.

Erin: 5:53

Right? First, can you remind us, like, what that's all about and why everyone's talking about it?

André: 6:01

The "30by30" means 30% by the year 2030, and 30% refers to the amount of land and sea that is under some form of biodiversity protection. But the term "protected area" usually refers to something that is formally protected, so it's proclaimed in some or other way, and that's very variable from country to country. But generally speaking, it requires resources, it requires a legal framing... It's very difficult for a lot of countries to achieve that. So... I wouldn't say the workaround, but a workaround to achieve that "30by30" - which has been spoken about quite a lot recently actually since a few COPs ago, but it's really starting to gain prominence now- is this idea of OECMs, which stands for "other effective area- based conservation measures". So just like protected areas are area- based conservation measures, OECMs are other area- based conservation measures. It's kind of a fancy way of saying areas that are contributing to the preservation of biodiversity, but without being formally called protected areas.

Erin: 7:12

Mm hmm.

André: 7:12

And there are various reasons for why that might happen. It might be that the people who own or who live in those areas don't want the legal baggage that might come with a protected area. But- I mean, a good example is in many cases where indigenous peoples and local communities are managing areas that they may have managed for a very long time.

Erin: 7:33

Mm hmm.

André: 7:34

For generations and centuries or longer. And so they're under a sort of fairly stable level of protection without being formally protected. And they don't want to be formally protected, but they're still contributing to conservation. And then another example, which - just to do a bit of an IGES plug here, IGES and the United Nations University's Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability have been working together for about ten years on this idea of Satoyama, or... Satoyama Initative is a kind of socioecological production landscape and seascape. These are landscapes that are producing food or timber or something... And at the same time, conserving. So it's especially... Perhaps especially relevant in a country like Japan where rural areas are actually emptying out into cities. And these areas which have been farmed, for example, or fished in a particular way for a very long time, have actually- they actually have an ecosystem all of their own. And when they're abandoned, the biodiversity levels go down.

Erin: 8:41

Mm hmm.

André: 8:41

And so especially in a situation like this, these are areas which, if they're preserved, if they continue to be socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes, they actually can serve as OECMs as well. So these are just- just some examples.

Erin: 8:56

Mm hmm.

Simon: 8:57

Do you think this will cover areas that are beyond national jurisdiction? I mean, there's almost some sort of paradox in that that maybe some of those areas need- you could say that they need protection from overfishing. I'm thinking of oceans here, but I guess since they are beyond national jurisdiction, you can't really... How would you designate the most protected when you- the question would be, who would protect them?

André: 9:22

How would you protect the open ocean?

Simon: 9:24

Yeah, yeah,

Erin: 9:25

Yeah.

André: 9:25

Yeah. I don't- I don't actually know. That's the short answer, but my guess is that that would be impossible because you would have to have agreement from everyone on how to fish the open ocean. And I think that probably is more relevant to other conventions, like the Convention on the Law of the Sea. I would imagine it's more relevant to that than it is to the CBD. But as far as what's- what's left, the EEZs - the economic exclusion zones - for countries that do have a coastline, which I think is 200 miles, if I remember correctly... Though, within that zone, the idea would be for each country kind of has a jurisdiction over that. And so within that, they would be expected or it will be hoped that each of them will try to conserve at least 30% in some way or another. But that leaves the majority of the oceans. Just to an ecological point, is that most of the biodiversity and most of the fishing is done within those EEZs. So they are the most important parts of the ocean. They're the areas that are of highest concern and the greatest threat as well.

Simon: 10:32

Right. Okay.

Erin: 10:34

Yeah, very interesting. I didn't really think about the open ocean there, but-

André: 10:38

Yeah. People generally forget about that. Like majority of ecologists and conservation biologist only think "land".

Erin: 10:46

Yeah.

André: 10:47

And myself included.

Erin: 10:48

I guess it's a really hard- I mean how- I guess you said that it's area-based so they would designate like a chunk of EEZ and try to conserve it?

André: 10:58

I mean marine protected areas are spatially demarcated. I mean, you can't see them in reality, but on the map, they'll be demarcated. Also, just to mention a protected area doesn't mean that nothing can be extracted from there. Right? There are various different kinds- even formal protected areas, whether marine or terrestrial. It doesn't mean that there's no use going on at all. It's just that it's supposed to be sustainable use. So a lot of variability, a huge amount of variability there.

Erin: 11:27

I mean, now I'm wondering, you know, you said that there are different tiers, I guess, of protection, different categories. And there are some countries that are very keen on having "30 by30" in the targets and other countries maybe not so. So if there are no consequences on countries if they don't meet the target, so why is it a controversy?

André: 11:51

It's just a fairly ambitious goal. So, you know, with- as with other multilateral environmental agreements, I think countries want to be able to show the world that they're doing a good job towards a particular goal, you know? So that's kind of what drives it, I think. And there's no there's no legal ramification if you don't meet that target.

Erin: 12:17

Mm hmm.

André: 12:17

For some countries, it's really not difficult. For some, it's- some countries have already done that. But for others, it's really difficult. And, you know, countries are so different. Size is different, amount of coastline is different, populations, of course, are different. So the bigger the population, the greater the need for resources. So there are all these different factors, but that is also understood. You know, it's- I think there's a general understanding that not all countries will be able to comply to the same extent or to fulfill the same goals, the same particular targets that other countries are able to fulfill. But just generally speaking,"30by30" is fairly ambitious. And as I mentioned, if it were 30% formally protected areas, you know, under some kind of legal backing, it would be arguably impossible for most countries to do that because it requires purchasing land, huge amounts of land and everything that goes with that. But these OECMs are... that's what I called it sort of a workaround. It's a way of getting to that target without having to formally protect areas. And I think it's a double-edged sword. I think it's a really good thing because it kind of- it also gives credit to, for example, indigenous peoples and local communities who have been conserving. But of course, it could also be misused. And just as there are many kinds of levels of protected areas, that- that's a formal demarcation. So now we're talking about an informal demarcation. So it's even more blurry, you know, what actually what actually counts as an OECM. But I suspect that, you know, over the years to come, there'll be some- some agreement on what constitutes an OECM, you know, so that people and governments can't get away with calling anything that just to make it look like they're fulfilling their targets.

Erin: 14:05

Mm hmm.

André: 14:06

If there's any controversy, it might be because some countries, despite the OECM option, they might still think that this is just too much to handle. And, you know, "easy for Country X, but not so easy for us. And that's not fair", you know?

Erin: 14:20

Right.

André: 14:20

Maybe some of that sentiment.

Erin: 14:22

Right. Because like you said, there are some countries that have already done it and- or are close to doing it.

André: 14:27

Yeah. And somewhere it's just so much more difficult than it is for others. Yeah.

Erin: 14:32

Mm hmm.

Simon: 14:32

Is it then so much more ambitious to a previous protected area target? Is it like double that or double the current target or?

André: 14:41

So the previous target did not include OECMs, right? So that- you can't really compare them. So... So first of all, the previous target was, I think it was 17% land and 10% sea...? I think that was the target from the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. So this is quite a big markup on that. But theoretically, the formal protected area portion could even go down as long as people- as long as countries are- if you're making up the difference with those OECMs, you could potentially even decrease from formal protected areas. But of course, that's not desirable. Right? You want it to be as protected as possible.

Simon: 15:18

But you're right. Yes. At least 17% of terrestrial and inland water and 10% of coastal and marine areas.

André: 15:24

Okay. Right. Yes. Right. So the 17 includes freshwater right? Even large freshwater bodies are not included in that. Yeah, thanks, Simon.

Erin: 15:34

So just to clarify, 30% in what's being discussed right now, that's 30% of land and 30% of sea? Is that-

André: 15:44

Of each.

Erin: 15:44

Of each, okay, Of each. That's- yeah, that's a lot. Okay. Mm hmm. It's not a combination.

André: 15:50

No, it's of each. Yeah, if it had been a combination, it would have only been a 3% increase.

Erin: 15:55

Right. Right.

André: 15:56

So that would have been pretty meager. Yeah.

Erin: 15:58

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Can I just mention something else here? I mean, it's something I haven't really thought about very much yet, but it has been brought up, I think. Yeah. I think there has been some criticism of the convenience of the "30by30" target. Right? Like, so it's just- It's like when someone presents you a list of... A list of rules or a list of- a checklist of something. And it happens to be ten or 20- one of these round numbers, then it kind of makes you wonder, like, was it really ten, or was ten just the number that... They wanted to you know, they wanted to get to that number? So the same with "30by30". It's- it's 30- the year is 2030. So, you know, 27% by 30 ("27 by 30") wouldn't sound as good, right? Or "31by30" wouldn't sound as good. So there has been some criticism of this being an arbitrary target, and it's difficult to argue against that. But on the other hand, I think that it's probably about right. And I think that if it's done right, especially if the OECM thing is done right and if countries really apply themselves to that, I think it could be a success. That that makes sense to I mean, "30by30" is definitely more attractive as a, you know, a headline than "31by 30" or whatever. Yeah, that makes sense. Apart from "30by30", are there other topics that are being hotly debated right now with respect to the GBF?

André: 17:26

Yeah. So finance is always on the table as a big issue. From whom and how much and and when and and all the rest of it... So that's kind of an eternal issue, I think. But the one which I think- I haven't been following this as closely as a lot of people, there might be things that are missing. But the one that has attracted my attention the most is the issue of digital sequencing information. And so... Or DSI for short, that acronym is all over some of the COP documents. Digital sequencing information is just the information about a genome and DNA information about a particular species. It's just the information. So the dispute here is- or the contention here is that certain countries are saying, "if this information comes from a species from within our borders, then we should be compensated some somehow for any profit that's made from using that information". And then other countries are saying, "well, this didn't cost you anything. Getting that information from the species didn't cost you anything". They're not removing the species. It's just, you know, when one specimen is enough to get that information.

Erin: 18:40

Mm hmm.

André: 18:41

And furthermore, the good that can be done with that information could benefit everyone in the long run, even if it is by a pharmaceutical company. So we're talking about, you know, medical and and technological- especially medical, I guess, but also other technological innovations that rely on this. And there's an amazingly interesting body of literature that looks at how, you know, how human beings have used these genomes and the different sort of characteristics of different species and their genes to come up with all sorts of solutions. But especially in the medical realm, there's all sorts of things being discovered all the time from nature and then applied to medicines. And, you know, one of these could be the next- could be the cure for cancer one day. We don't know.

Erin: 19:27

Sure. Right.

André: 19:28

So you can imagine, you can understand maybe the debate there.

Erin: 19:30

Mm hmm. So I guess under that kind of thinking, genetic material or maybe genetic information is kind of proprietary in a way? I mean, to use an analogy, like with GMOs, genetically modified organisms, there are a lot of labs that patent genes. Right? So I'm thinking, like, is it going to be similar to that potentially? or I mean, it wouldn't be a patent per say, right, because they don't own the gene...

André: 19:59

Right. But if they do anything to change it, then there's the possibility of that. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that all of this is a big part of the negotiation, but I haven't actually sat in on any of those negotiations. So what I should mention is that one of the things that's being discussed is whether DSI should even be part of the global biodiversity framework.

Erin: 20:18

Okay.

André: 20:19

Well, some countries want it to be and then other countries don't. And I think one of the motivations for not having it in the global biodiversity framework is that, if it is in there, it might hold up the process and might prevent the whole biodiversity framework from being adopted.

Erin: 20:36

Right.

André: 20:36

This is probably a gross oversimplification of things, but I think it gives you an idea of how complicated it must be once you get into the details.

Simon: 20:44

I think there is an Aichi target on fair and equitable sharing of the benefits. I don't know what the real wording is- on sharing the benefits of anything that derives from genetic information. So I suppose it's sort of... Maybe the discussion is related to some Parties wanting to avoid that falls between the cracks and that some countries make a lot of money on monopolising the access to that information.

André: 21:11

Yeah. There's an entire protocol of the CBD, the Nagoya Protocol, which also emerged from the Japan COP10 in 2010, which is all about that. And to be honest, I don't even know why this is being discussed outside that Protocol. It might be that because it was just considered such a big issue, or it's just too related to other aspects of the Convention to be isolated to the Protocol, because the Protocol has its own set of negotiations and its own decisions, which are usually held at the same time as the CBD COP. And that'll happen this time as well. But this is forming part of the COP negotiations specifically.

Erin: 21:51

Say that we are able to have a GBF that is adopted at COP 15. I mean, right now I know that there is a lot of text that is still bracketed, which means not agreed on, Right? So...

André: 22:06

Yeah.

Erin: 22:07

So hopefully, you know, those will get resolved. What then after the post-2020 GBF is adopted will change, right, about the way we do things? How will governments and other stakeholders, like businesses or civil society or even individuals- how would this framework change the way that these stakeholders do things? Will it?

André: 22:33

I don't think there's anything in the GBF that, you know, that's different to what's in the Strategic Plan that's likely to make people do things differently. And I stand under correction there. I may be wrong about that, but from what I've seen, nothing really kind of stands out unless this DSI issue somehow has a really big impact. And "30by30" might be something that really gets people excited about protected areas, you know, more than there were in the past. But I think arguably the most important thing is that the countries have been waiting for the GBF to be approved in order to do their national level GBFs, which are the NBSAPs (National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans).

Erin: 23:17

Mm hmm.

André: 23:17

these are produced sort of every four or five years, typically. Some Parties are very good at producing them on a regular basis. A couple haven't ever done any, but most have done sort of a couple at least. So the level of uptake is... Could be better, but it seems to be improving over time. But then that really slow down because of the delay of the COP and the delay of the GBF. I'm kind of guessing here, but I think they didn't want to go too far down the road because they didn't want to kind of contradict the GBF when it came out and they didn't know when it was coming out. They kept on being told it was going to be in six months' time. So I suspect that a lot of them have just been waiting for the GBF to come out so that they have something to model their NBSAPs on. And I don't think that- I mean, it's not like they need the GBF to understand what the priorities are in their country, but for reporting processes to the CBD and to be kind of part of this global interaction that is the Convention on Biological Diversity, there's an expectation to somehow match your NBSAP- and the targets, especially, within your NBSAP to the targets and the goals that are in the GBF. So if you have a look at the publication dates of NBSAPs on the CBD website, there's this big gap recently where no one's producing- or very few countries are producing NBSAPs because they were expecting 2020 was the year they could start thinking about it again. And then that got delayed to 2021, now 2022. A few countries have, and some of those are kind of a little more generic than usual, you know, to compensate for the fact that they don't have a plan to model it on. But I think a lot of countries are waiting for the final text so that they can use that as a template for their NBSAPs. So it's kind of- the lack of a GBF, regrettably, might have slowed down a lot of the NBSAPs. So a lot of countries may still be working off their older ones. And I guess the- you know, in some cases that might not be so important because they'll carry on anyway. But in other cases it might make a big difference. So I would say- this is a personal opinion, but I would say that's an important reason to have the global diversity framework operational.

Erin: 25:30

So I guess it depends on resources. Right? Maybe some countries might have the means to continue doing what they're doing and continue building the momentum. Maybe?

André: 25:41

Yeah, that's kind of- that's a good point. Resources is another issue because once the GBF is doing its thing, there will be more well-defined channels for funding to the countries that need it. So that's definitely a thing. And I didn't really include that. I wasn't thinking about that when I answered it now, but that's definitely a thing as well. But what I was thinking about was more just the- just the case that countries just don't have a plan to work off for the next few years because they're holding off on it, they're standing back and waiting until they can match their plan to this global plan.

Erin: 26:15

Hmm. In those countries, the ones that care a lot about biodiversity, they would just continue doing what they have been doing, I guess . Maintaining-

André: 26:24

Yeah.

Erin: 26:25

Whereas other countries maybe we don't really know what's going on in those.

André: 26:29

Yeah.

Erin: 26:30

So if you could think of like maybe one or two things that you hope would come out of COP15. What would that be?

André: 26:39

Well, I think number one would be just that the GBF is agreed on. I hope that there is agreement, you know, and that parties can be happy about whatever is agreed upon in the end. But that is not too watered down that it does not mean anything. Yeah. And then this is maybe more of a personal preference than anything else, but I think that the whole idea of technological innovation is lacking a bit from the GBF as it stands at the moment. Where the word innovation is used mostly as is with respect to innovation by indigenous peoples and local communities and related to indigenous and local knowledge, which is obviously very important. And the whole IPLC ILK inclusion in the GBF is something it's really important and it's something which has really gathered a lot of steam over recent years. But in addition to that, I think that just the idea of embracing market mechanisms as one of the solutions to the problems that we're facing with biodiversity worldwide now, I think, is really important. I think that we're not going to get where we need to get in terms of achieving these goals purely through regulation. I think it requires harnessing the market, understanding the market and how to incentivise the market in the right ways, you know, to provide these, kind of, triggers for the market to go in the right direction rather than... More- a little bit more carrot and a bit less stick, I think, although both are still very important. But the innovation side of things is not very prominent in the GBF. I just had a look at the bracketed version which has well over a thousand brackets and that's a lot in a short document like that.

Erin: 28:25

Yeah.

André: 28:25

And the word "innovation" is barely mentioned. As I mentioned, where it is mentioned, it usually pertains to indigenous and local knowledge or indigenous peoples in local communities. So I think that's something which I hope that it pops up and in fact IGES does- We are an observer organisation at or to the CBD and therefore at the COPs. So we do have the opportunity to make inputs into the negotiations. But if I think it's appropriate, I think that the thing that I'm most likely to propose is a strong emphasis on innovation in an appropriate part of the GBF text. So we'll see how that goes. A lot depends on how things pan out. And with this three-day working group meeting before the COP, there's three days of negotiations specifically on the GBF and who knows how different the GBF is going to look after those three days, and then it'll be debated through most of the COP again. So it may look very similar, it may look completely different. We'll have to wait and see.

Bob: 29:31

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