Resource Mobilization for biodiversity in an extractive and inequitable context

There are fundamental flaws in the way the global economy is structured, which continue to perpetuate biodiversity loss and impact negatively on indigenous peoples and local communities. 

The failure to achieve the Aichi targets set by CBD Parties comes amidst worsening and interconnected climate, biodiversity, health and economic crises. The pandemic has deepened inequities, and the situation is very critical now.

It is clear that we cannot address the biodiversity crisis with more of the same strategies, but there is a need to really address the structural and systemic root causes of biodiversity loss, which are driven by wealthy, powerful elites and corporations.

The same applies to financing for biodiversity, or resource mobilization, which has to be seen in the larger context of the deeply extractive and inequitable global economy that is in place, both historically and today. 

There is an urgent need for resources to be channeled  to support indigenous peoples and local communities.

Watch the short video on the topic by Lim Li Ching from TWN:

In addition, addressing the funding gap of biodiversity conservation in innovative ways will compromise a crucial component needed for the Global Biodiversity Framework implementation.

A big part of the conservation community explains the failure to advance all of Aichi's biodiversity targets highlighting the lack of funding (the so-called financial gap) and focuses on filling this gap with private sector financing schemes to address the lack of public investment. 

However, as Mariana Mazzucato emphasizes in her book Mission Economy, that more public funding is needed. Could negotiators come up with innovative and transformational ways to solve this such as debt restructuring or through multilateral tax reforms in order to successfully implement the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Watch this short video on the topic from Professor Jessica Dempsey, University of British Columbia:

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