This brief, prepared by the Human Rights and Biodiversity Working Group, offers key recommendations including text suggestions for Parties and other actors, across key agenda items of COP 16, to further embed a human rights-based approach (HRBA) in the implementation and monitoring of the KMGBF, and in biodiversity governance more broadly.  

READ THE FULL BRIEF HERE

  • Ensure accountability on Section C: Biodiversity loss, climate change and human rights are interconnected, and biodiversity and climate action can have adverse human rights impacts. Therefore, the KMGBF’s implementation must respect, protect, promote and fulfil human rights, as enshrined in international human rights law. 
  • Ensure the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, youth, and other rights holders in the ongoing revision of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) and in the update of national targets, actions and indicators, to address their contributions, needs and value systems.
  • Support improved dissemination of existing tools and guidance on human rights-based approaches and the development and use of new tools and guidance where needed, to strengthen the implementation of the KMGBF.
  • Confirm the establishment of a permanent subsidiary body on Article 8(j) and Related Provisions as recommended by the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and many other actors.
  • Maintain and incorporate provisions of work on human rights-based approaches and prioritise tasks for the development of guidance on human rights-based approaches, and the protection of environmental human rights defenders in the new Programme of Work on Article 8(j). 
  • Ensure direct, effective and equitable financial support for diverse rights-holder groups related to biodiversity, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, youth, and Afro-descendant communities, as priority in the financial mechanism for implementing the KMGBF.
  • Biodiversity finance and compliance mechanisms need to ensure social, human rights and gender safeguards are in place and should actively involve key rights holders in decision-making and implementation.
  • Adopt the monitoring framework annex at COP 16 including the AHTEG suggestions on indicators presented at SBSTTA 26 that relate to monitoring and reporting on human rights, gender responsiveness, youth and intergenerational equity, and actively support the participation of rights-holders in monitoring, reporting and review mechanisms. Adopt the proposed headline indicator for Target 22 tracking land tenure and land use change. 
  • Outline a clear process for addressing gaps in the monitoring framework between COP16 and COP17 particularly regarding the monitoring of Section C, Target 3, and Target 22. 
  • Ensure that equity, gender equality and the human rights-based approach remain a main strategic issue to be addressed at each COP meeting between 2024-2030.
  • The implementation of the KMGBF requires collaboration particularly at the national and sub-national levels, between all actors, in line with the “whole of society approach” in Section C. We support the pro-active creation of partnerships between relevant international organisations and bodies established under other Conventions. In particular, UNFCCC, OHCHR and Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ knowledge platforms. 
  • Ensure the implementation of the KMGBF in the context of marine, coastal, and island biodiversity is consistent with international human rights law and instruments, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, FAO SSF Guidelines, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and ensure the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ small-scale fishers, recognizing their traditional knowledge and safeguarding their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Individuals and organisations involved in the drafting of this brief include:

Helen Tugendhat and Maurizio Farhan Ferrari (Forest Peoples Programme – FPP), Cristina Eghenter (WWF International), Jessica Campese, Amelia Arreguin (CBD Women’s Caucus & FPP), Barbara Lassen and Krystyna Swiderska (IIED), Alexandra Masako Goossens-Ishii (SGI), Vivienne Solis Rivera (ICSF, ICCA Consortium, CoopeSoliDar R.L), Nela Cernota (OHCHR), Women4Biodiversity, Terence Hay-Edie (UNDP), Josefa Tauli (GYBN), An Lambrechts and Victorine Che Thoener (Greenpeace International), Chris Chapman (Amnesty International) and coordinating team SwedBio. 

This brief was produced in alignment with and consultation on the demands from the CBD Women’s Caucus, Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) and International and Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB). 

For more information or if you have any questions, please contact: humanrightsbiodiversity@gmail.com

2024-10-22