“It strengthens representation, coordination and inclusive decision-making and creates a space for dialogue with parties to the COP,” Raj told The Associated Press, referring to the meeting’s formal name, Conference of Parties.
Negotiators struggled to reach agreement on a number of key issues over the past week, but reached a consensus after talks concluded late Friday.
The COP16 summit, hosted in Cali, Colombia, was a follow-up to the historic 2022 agreement in Montreal, which included 23 measures to save the planet’s plant and animal life, including protecting 30% of the planet and 30% of the damaged ecosystems. by 2030.
A measure was also adopted in Cali to recognize the importance of the role of people of African descent in protecting nature.
The indigenous body will be formed by two co-chairs chosen by the COP: one nominated by UN parties of the regional group, and the other nominated by representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities, the AP saw in the final document.
At least one of the co-chairs will be chosen from a developing country, taking into account gender balance, the document said.
“This decision recognizes the value of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities, and settles a 26-year-old historical debt in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),” said Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and COP16 President, posted on social media platform X shortly after the announcement.
Who owns nature’s DNA was one of the most controversial and hotly negotiated topics at the summit, as tensions rose between poorer and developed countries over digital genetic resource sequence information (DSI).
However, negotiators agreed on Saturday morning to require major companies to share the benefits of using resources from animals, plants or microorganisms in biotechnologies.
Delegations agreed on a genetic information fee of 0.1% of companies’ revenues from products derived from such information.
“Many of the life-saving medicines we use today come from the rainforest. It is therefore right that part of the revenue that companies generate from this information goes back to protecting nature,” says Toerris Jaeger, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. “This is the absolute highlight of COP16.”
An agreement was also adopted to protect human health from the planet’s increasing biodiversity problems. The degradation of ecosystems and the loss of ecological integrity pose a direct threat to human and animal health, environmental groups say.
The pledges made by countries over the two weeks fell far short of the billions needed to tackle declining global biodiversity, with only around $400 million in the fund.
The modest pledges do not bode well for the next UN climate talks, COP29, which will take place in Azerbaijan later this month. The focus of COP29 is expected to be on generating the trillions of dollars needed for the world to transition to clean energies such as solar, wind and geothermal energy. Raising that money will require major efforts from countries, companies and charities.
At the Montreal Biodiversity Summit, rich countries pledged to raise $20 billion annually in conservation financing for developing countries by 2025, with that number increasing to $30 billion annually by 2030.
According to the biennial Living Planet report from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, the global wildlife population has fallen by an average of 73% over 50 years.