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Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture Bringing Agricultural Biodiversity Back to the Centre of the CBD Agricultural biodiversity underpins the food system, but the issue has not received the attention it deserves. As negotiations on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) are ongoing, it is essential that agriculture is brought back centrestage: it needs to be dealt with both as a destructive force, and in its ability to nurture and restore biodiversity. A recent briefing paper from Friends of the Earth International explores how the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the international community can do so. The IPBES Assessment report clearly identified industrial agriculture as the main driver of biodiversity loss. Giving indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), farmers and fisherfolks the key role they deserve in the management of agriculture is not only a question of justice, but also the only way in which the world can develop the food production it needs without destroying the natural environment at the same time. It is paramount that the GBF includes targets that promote and support agroecology and phases out industrial agriculture. It must ensure the collective rights of IPLCs, peasants, family farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolks, agricultural and food workers, landless, women and youth. The GBF must put a stop to several things; including harmful pesticides, GMOs, the digitalisation of biodiversity, and false solutions. There is a need to regulate corporations, particularly agribusiness, throughout the entire supply chain. Beyond the GBF, the CBD programme of work on agricultural biodiversity should include concrete policy proposals that will reduce harm to biodiversity by industrial agriculture, and simultaneously increase rights and justice for IPLCs, farmers and fisherfolks. This needs to be complemented and implemented by national biodiversity action plans. The plans should also promote the central role of local food systems, small-scale producers and agroecology in community forest management/ conservation, while achieving food sovereignty. Further mechanisms are necessary to ensure biodiversity doesn´t get harmed by (new) agricultural developments. For example, a robust technology assessment and horizon-scanning mechanism to assess the potential impacts and negative consequences of new technologies is urgently needed. The recommendations of the briefing paper are reproduced below. With
best wishes, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REPLANTING AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY IN THE CBD Friends
of the Earth International Recommendations In order to fulfil the objectives of the CBD, it is critical that the impacts of agriculture on biodiversity are strictly regulated. The IPBES Assessment report has clearly identified agriculture as the main driver for biodiversity loss. Giving IPLCs, farmers and fisherfolks the key role they deserve in the management of agriculture is not only a question of justice, but also the only way in which the world can develop the food production it needs without destroying the natural environment at the same time. It is important to remind ourselves that currently small scale producers produce the majority of the world’s food, using less than a quarter of the land. Agriculture needs to be brought back in the CBD in several, complementary ways. 1) It is paramount that the Global Biodiversity Framework includes targets that:
2) Apply well established principles, protocols and Rights Declarations in the development of the GBF and subsequent CBD policies. This includes:
3) Beyond the approval of the Global Biodiversity Framework, the CBD needs to re-introduce agriculture and its impacts into its daily work. CBD work plans need to be set up which ensure the follow up and implementation of concrete policy proposals that will reduce harm to biodiversity by industrial agriculture, and simultaneously increase rights and justice for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, farmers and fisherfolks. Such plans need to be complemented and implemented by national biodiversity action plans (NBSAPs) at the national level, which are strongly imbedded in national institutions and constructed in a participatory way, particularly taking into account the views of rightsholders such as Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, farmers, fishers and pastoralists. The plans should also promote the central role of local food systems, small-scale producers and agroecology in community forest management/ conservation, while achieving food sovereignty. 4) Within the CBD itself, there is scope to develop further mechanisms that are necessary to ensure biodiversity doesn´t get harmed by (new) agricultural developments. For example, a robust technology assessment and horizon-scanning mechanism to assess the potential impacts and negative consequences of new technologies is urgently needed. 5) In order to ensure that biodiversity concerns are properly taken into account in all agricultural activities, the CBD needs to take on a coordination role with other relevant UN institutions, such as: a. The Food and Agriculture Organization, including the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture to establish coordinated common strategies and initiatives to fight against biodiversity loss created by food and agriculture production while promoting and supporting approaches that improve biodiversity, such as agroecology. This coordination should include Civil Society Organisation participation, according to FAO rules and procedures. b. The UN Human Rights Council which, in 2014, established an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate is to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises with regard to human rights binding treaty for business and human rights. This is necessary because the there is a high coincidence between areas and developments that lead to human rights violations and those that lead to loss of biodiversity. c. The Rotterdam Convention, to ensure hazardous chemicals, in particular pesticides, do not negatively impact biodiversity and to contribute to the phase-out of highly hazardous pesticides by 2030. Furthermore, all states must work to ensure that trade rules established at all level do not undermine biodiversity or prevent the implementation of necessary policies. As the COVID pandemic is ongoing, it is essential that we continue the implementation of the Aichi Targets. Just because the year 2020 has passed, it does not mean these targets are no longer valuable. On the contrary, the problem with the previous 10-year framework has not been its content, but rather its lack of implementation. The world cannot afford an “implementation gap”, as is currently happening.
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