17th Conference of Parties of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity gets underway in Yerevan, Armenia # UNCBD COP 17
17th Conference of Parties of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity gets underway in Yerevan, Armenia
Yerevan, Armenia 19.10.26
Malini Shankar
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| Executive Secretary Ms. Astrid Schomacher with other leaders at the inaguration of UNCBD COP 17 in Yerevan Armnia on 18th October 2026. |
Headline was that the deforestation in the Amazon basin has decreased substantially for the first time since satellite monitoring commenced in 1988. The Amazon recorded a historic low in deforestation in 2026: 3.335 km², the lowest figure since satellite monitoring began in 1988. This represents a 41,81% decrease from last year’s figure (5,731 km²) and a 71.2% decline over the past four years. In the Cerrado, Brazil’s fastest-deforested biome, the area cleared also fell to its lowest level on record, at 5.516 km², a decline of 23.76% from last year (7,235 km²) and 48.4% over the past four years. The data from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), released this Friday (16th) represent a victory for Brazilian society and are cause for celebration.
The first is that ending deforestation is possible. The current administration
took office after four years of deliberate anti-environmental policies that
drove the largest increase in deforestation under a single presidential term
since the historical series began — a 60% rise compared with the previous
period — and brought forest destruction back down to its lowest recorded level
in nearly four decades. In the four years of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third
term, the Amazon lost 24.648 km² of forest, 46% less than the total deforested
under the Jair Bolsonaro administration (45,586 km²).
The second is that political will is essential to making this happen. The
figures released last Friday are the result of a clear and sustained commitment
to environmental protection by the government, which implemented a set of
public policies to combat environmental crimes under the leadership of Marina
Silva, former minister of Environment and Climate Change. Actions by Ibama (the
Brazilian federal environmental agency), such as collective embargoes on
deforested areas and remote satellite monitoring, as well as the expansion of
financing instruments such as the Amazon Fund, were key to achieving these
results.
The third is that curbing deforestation is good news not only for the
environment. It is good for the climate — over the past four years, efforts to
curb forest destruction have prevented at least 2.238 billion tonnes of
greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere — and for agribusiness
itself, whose GDP is projected to reach R$3.13 trillion in 2026, up 17.67% from
the agricultural sector’s GDP in 2022, the final year of Jair Bolsonaro’s
administration.
“The figures released Friday are a historic achievement. They put Brazil at the
forefront of the forest protection agenda and show the world that, with
political will, it is possible to stop the chainsaws and curb greenhouse gas
emissions,” says Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian NGO
Observatório do Clima.
Countries that are participating will negotiate and pitch for targets that are commensurate to their countries’ development status, footprint and progress.
The biggest pressure point and
deadline remains the KMGBF Targets for 2030. The opening announcement came from
Jeff Bezos Founder CEO of Amazon when he committed to $50 million as
Biodiversity Earth Fund.
How much of this might come to
India and what it might be prioritised for remains a keen point of attention
for the Biodiversity Community.
This year's summit marks the
halfway point between the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework in 2022 and the 2030 deadline for delivering its targets. Yerevan
marks the halfway point between the Framework’s historic adoption in 2022 and
the 2030 deadline for meeting its ambitious set of interconnected targets.
Critical areas for ecological
governance in India remain:
1. Increase
in Green cover through legal instruments of Protected Area notification,
2. Relocation and livelihood security of forest dwellers,
Sustainability in economic development will make a difference between food security and starvation for vulnerable communities like fishers.
3. Finding
sustainable solutions for recognition of ownership of traditional wisdom, its
patents, and access to resources, and benefit sharing by owners of such
traditional wisdom through legally sustainable means with larger society. The wish-list can be accessed here. While all
these technical phrases seem like they shoot overhead like a missile, it
manifests, as no headway in tightening the open ends of the copyright laws… which
has a bearing on patenting traditional knowledge like traditional wisdom and
medicines, yoga, handicrafts etc… alternate sources
of nutrition, agrometeorological wisdom, Climate Change adaptation and so on.
4. The
KMGBF Targets for 2030 has almost all signatory countries in hot soup.
5. Biodiversity
governance, ecological legislation, water, food and livelihood security of
indigenous people and future generations should be on the priority. UNICEF has issued a Press
Release “Integrating children's rights into National Biodiversity
Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). Biodiversity policies should
explicitly address impacts on children's health, education, nutrition, water
security, and protection. This should extend to the age-disaggregated reporting
guidance under discussion for the Global Review and future NBSAP updates,
alongside the gender disaggregation already being negotiated” the press release
states.
6. The
critical need for land use policy definition leaves Biodiversity Governance at
the mercy of uncertified mining and other anthropogenic development serving the
political expediency instead.
7. The
gender gap in biodiversity governance makes a case for due diligence in India. Livelihood
security for rural women in Biodiversity conservation opens opportunities in
avenues like creation and sustenance of seed banks, nurseries, pot drip
irrigation, pottery making (for pot drip irrigation), marketing and sales of
agricultural products, agro ecological interventions like manufacture of
agricultural by products like millet based bakery products, awareness creation
in menstrual hygiene among indigenous communities, bottling forest based honey,
propagating the value of traditional medicines etc. COP 17’s CBD Women's Caucus and IIED in Yerevan is already handing out
the handbook for the gender initiatives
in biodiversity conservation and governance.
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