Roadmap to conserve and restoring biodiversity approved

The first global plan to finance and monitor nature conservation is the most notable outcome of the follow-up negotiations on biodiversity COP16, held in Rome (Italy) in the last week of February 2025. This meeting resumed the discussions initiated at COP16 in October 2024 in Cali (Colombia) on the financing of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which were suspended in October 2024 for lack of a quorum. This framework agreement aims to preserve one third of the world's land and oceans between now and 2030 and should enable us to conserve the world's biodiversity and reverse its loss. 

CREAF's Head of Policy Engagement and Institutional Relations, Alicia Pérez-Porro, makes an initial assessment of this agreement, after having attended several editions of both the COP on biodiversity and climate, as part of a delegation from the center. 

“The negotiations in Rome have yielded results and we finally have the first global plan to finance biodiversity conservation. Geopolitics played a critical role in this second meeting in Rome, due to the resignation of Susana Muhamad - Colombia's environment minister and president of the COP16 - and due to the US policies against conservation which affect the withdrawal of funding for all environmental action.

The consensus of this second round of the COP16 in Rome guarantees the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes both the financial mechanism and the monitoring.

We have a clear roadmap for preserving and restoring biodiversity, as well as the financial resources to drive it forward. This is incredibly positive news, given the current global drift. However, it has to be said that as usual in such negotiations, the ambition has been low”.