The CBD’s Open-Ended Working Group on the post-2020 biodiversity framework (i.e., what happens after the Aichi Targets) has been meeting this week in Rome to discuss what they call their “Zero Draft.” You can read that on the CBD website, along with its appendix on how to monitor progress (i.e. goals and indicators). As ever, IISD does a great job of summarizing the sessions, and the corridor talk.
Why is this important to agriculture? Well, because in 2018 the fourteenth meeting of its Conference of Parties in Sharm el-Sheikh said that the work of the CBD after 2020 needed to be as inclusive and global as possible. That means the framework had to address the particular concerns of all the different sectors, including agriculture.
Yeah, but why is that even a thing? Surely conservation of agricultural biodiversity is just the same as conservation of other biodiversity. Actually, not so much. And if you want a very concise explanation of the difference, and a nice summary of the state of the negotiations to boot, you could do a lot worse than watch this interview with Kent Nnadozie, Secretary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. It’s on the CBD’s Facebook page, so I’m not entirely sure if everyone will be able — or willing — to see it. If that includes you, let me know and I’ll see if I can think of a way around it. ((Maybe my YouTube is better for you?)).
Spoiler alert: it’s the use.
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