International governments are set to resume the COP16 biodiversity summit, where they will agree on key aspects of a flagship global action plan to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
However, Indigenous rights campaign group Survival International has called out the “deeply flawed” basis of the fund underpinning its work. Crucially, this is because the framework could result in the serious violation of Indigenous peoples’ human rights.
COP16 biodiversity summit: systemic failures all round
Between 25 to 27 February, international parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will reconvene for the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Rome.
It follows a first round of November 2024 negotiations in Cali, Colombia. Top of the agenda will be to agree on the implementation and monitoring of the flagship Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).
Countries adopted this at the 2022 COP15 in Canada. In a nutshell, its a global set of goals to curb biodiversity loss. It committed parties to setting national targets to reverse ecological decline. And crucially, as the CBD itself describes:
sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Among the Framework’s key elements are 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030.
So, representatives at COP16 will now negotiate a key aspect of this – the delivery of the fund which finances action on these targets.
Global South countries had argued for a new dedicated fund, separate from existing development aid apparatus. However, Global North countries rejected this in favour of a fund under the existing Global Environment Facility (GEF). The World Bank, UN agencies, and various governments oversee this. The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) is the GEF-led financing mechanism that parties established instead.
By February 2025, governments around the world had committed around $383m to the fund. Canada ($146m), Germany ($98m), the UK ($69m), Denmark ($14.5m), Norway ($14m) and New Zealand ($12m) have contributed the vast majority of this. However, the figure pales in comparison to scale of finance that’s needed.
And already, the GBFF is failing in one vital aspect in particular: respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Red flags on Indigenous rights
Ahead of the Cali talks, campaign group Survival International had raised a significant number of red flags with the fund.
It rebranded the financing mechanism the ‘Grievous Biodiversity Failure Fund’ for its severe lack of protections for Indigenous people.
In a briefing, Survival highlighted that:
The choice of the Global Environment Facility to run the GBFF was already deeply unacceptable in terms of Indigenous rights. Crucially, the organisation does not universally require that Indigenous people have the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) over any projects it funds which may affect their lives, lands and rights. Such requirement for consent is only covered by the GEF’s ‘Principles and Guidelines for Engagement with
Indigenous Peoples’ where the recipient country has ratified ILO Convention 1698. This is only the case for 24 countries worldwide (six of which are in Europe). Even then, the GEF stipulates that for its purposes, FPIC can be demonstrated through “(i) the mutually accepted consultation process between the project proponent and affected indigenous communities and (ii) evidence of agreement between the parties as the outcome of the
consultations” (emphasis added).In other words, in most countries where GEF might fund projects through the GBFF, FPIC would not be required. Even in the few where it applies, the critical concept of consent (i.e, Indigenous people having the right to decline a project that affects them), is downgraded merely to project proponents having to demonstrate that consultation has been carried out.
In short, the fund will not require projects to show that they have consulted with Indigenous groups. It means the fund will invariably finance projects that violate Indigenous communities’ human and territorial rights.
Notably, there are a number of issues which will only make these abuses hugely likely. Crucially, the GBFF facilitates the following:
- Biodiversity Credits – a scheme based on the discredited carbon credit model. These pose a serious new threat to Indigenous peoples and their rights.
- The 30×30 pledge to put 30% of the world’s land and seas under some protection for biodiversity. This will almost certainly result in evictions of Indigenous peoples from their lands, as has been the case to date through Western-backed colonial fortress conservation projects all over the planet.
- The structure and operation of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is fundamentally flawed. It promotes a top-down approach to conservation projects. What’s needed is a rights-based plan for biodiversity protection.
The UN and WWF: colonial conservation
Now, the group has expanded its research, and found the picture for Indigenous people under the GBFF is even worse than it originally warned.
For a start, the GBFF is already falling woefully short of a key promise on Indigenous inclusion.
The fund states that it is “expected to support the human rights-based” implementation of the KMGBF. And in 2023, the GEF also set an “aspirational target” that it would direct 20% of GBFF disbursements to Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLCs). Of course, this was already a pitiful target to begin with given Indigenous communities safeguard much of the world’s biodiversity.
That is, while they make up less than 5% of the global human population, Indigenous Peoples’ territories hold as much as 80% of the world’s forest biodiversity.
To date, the GBFF is disgracefully failing to live up to this pledge. As Survival’s updated briefing underscores:
Only one of the forty projects so far approved – the very first proposed, by the government of Brazil – will likely be of benefit to Indigenous people and is clearly directed to them. Following a project application template, all the projects make a ‘tick-box’ claim to have an allocation to IPLCs. If true, these would total more than thirty percent of the $201 million for approved projects and concepts (and project preparation grants) to date. But our analysis reveals that only one of the other thirty-nine programmes contains any budgetary provision for work with Indigenous people.
Instead, it depicts a funding landscape where “top-down, colonial conservation”, such as National Parks and reserves, dominate. UN agencies and largely US-based conservation organisations have co-opted the vast majority of the project portfolio so far. This is despite a shameful history of this ‘protected area’ model fomenting violent evictions, and horrific human rights abuses.
For instance, the Canary previously found 16 UNESCO World Heritage Site protected areas (PAs) spanning 11 countries with reports of land dispossessions and abuses. Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are vast numbers more PAs where states and organisations have done the same.
One international conservation organisation notorious for said violations is the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Predictably then, one of its projects that the GBFF is financing has a history of doing just that. Specifically, it will fund WWF militarised PAs in Africa with a legacy of dispossession and brutality from so-called eco-guards.
COP16: business-as-usual on biodiversity isn’t going to cut it
So, it’s also with no small amount of irony that it happens to be one the conservation charities massively benefitting from the GBFF. As Survival noted:
In terms of funding, the one project involving Indigenous lands in Brazil represents about 4% ($8 million) of the total so far approved or provisionally committed by the GBFF. This is less than the ‘proposer agency’ fees being paid to mostly UN agencies and international conservation organisations such as WWF simply for submitting proposals. Together, these fees alone come to more than 8% ($17 million) of the total funds currently committed
Overall, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), WWF, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and US-based Conservation International have captured the bulk of the funds. Together, these agencies have taken $138m – more than two-thirds – of the total funding countries have committed so far.
Ultimately, carrying on the same model of colonial conservation that criminalises Indigenous communities in their own lands, while opening ecological areas up to extractive capitalism is doomed to fail.
A 2024 study found that biodiversity rates were declining at a rapid rate inside PAs.
Therefore, continuing this business-as-usual violent fortress model through the GBFF will only spell disaster for the world’s biodiversity. As ever though, its Indigenous people who’ll bear the brunt of the the Global North’s flawed solution to the planetary crisis.
Featured image via the Canary
