World leaders at the UN biodiversity summit COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, concluded that conservation efforts are too slow to meet the 2030 goals of the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Representatives from almost 200 countries agreed to a plan called the Yerevan Pathway to speed up progress before the next summit in Ecuador in two years.
The plan calls for tackling subsidies and incentives that harm nature, increasing financial, scientific and technical support for developing countries, and strengthening monitoring and reporting.
Steven Guilbeault, former Canadian minister of environment and climate change, said finance remains one of the biggest obstacles. He called the near-empty state of a voluntary fund for companies profiting from genetic materials "especially disappointing."
Catherine Weller, global policy director at Fauna & Flora, said the Yerevan agreement was welcome but that funding fell far short of a pledge made in the 2022 deal. She said the world could afford to spend $200 billion a year on protecting and restoring nature.
Conference organizers said governments, philanthropists and businesses announced close to $2 billion in new financial commitments during the gathering. The Netherlands pledged $500 million to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a Brazilian initiative that pays countries to keep their forests standing.
Brian O'Donnell, director at Campaign for Nature, said the growing number of national diversity plans and the new pledge to the Brazilian fund were "reasons for cautious optimism."
The source reports that international funding for protected areas has fallen in a number of countries, with a 27 percent decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.