For Immediate Release 7 December 2022
Press Conference: CBD COP
15
Experts from four continents
condemn false solutions to the biodiversity crisis: Nature for Business, 30x30
and Biotechnology for Biodiversity
Threats to Indigenous peoples, local communities, biodiversity
and the climate
So-called “solutions” to the biodiversity and climate crises are being
developed, not for the protection of biological diversity, but to ensure the
unsustainable continuation of business as usual.
Speakers:
Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project, Souparna
Lahiri, Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor, Global Forest Coalition,
Tom Wakeford, Europe Director, ETC Group and Lucas A. Garibaldi, co-Chair,
Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
The Global Biodiversity Framework being negotiated at COP 15 includes
proposals for so-called Business for Nature or Nature-Positive Business, “30x30”
and biotechnology for biodiversity protection. These are being pushed forward as
major “solutions” to the biodiversity crisis, even though they have been
designed to advance business as usual through the promotion of offsets, land
grabs and dangerous new unproven technologies.
"The expansion of
so-called 'protected areas' and offsets under these concepts of
"Nature-positive" or "Nature Based Solutions" have nothing to do with halting
biodiversity loss. They are only about paving the way for business and enabling
ongoing biodiversity destruction and climate change emission through the
promotion of protected areas as biodiversity offsets," stated Souparna
Lahiri of Global Forest Coalition. "If you really want to
protect and conserve biodiversity, we must actually halt biodiversity
loss."
The rapid advancement of new, extreme and unproven technologies is
leading to renewed calls demanding application of the Precautionary
principle–including "horizon scanning" to help identify and reign in risky new
and emerging technologies before they are implemented.
"Countries here
negotiating the protection of global biodiversity must retain the Precautionary
principle on which the CBD was founded. The text agreed here must ensure that
society builds participatory mechanisms to scan the horizon for future risky
technologies, assess new technologies that are already in development, such as
gene drive organisms, and monitor existing technologies for potential harmful
impact. The disastrous ecological and human health consequences of the last 20
years of GM crop cultivation are a lesson in what happens when none of these
three processes takes place effectively, one highlighted in Kenya last month,"
said Tom Wakeford of ETC Group.
Particular concerns revolve around the impacts of new genetic engineering
technologies on pollinators.
"The proposed release into wild forests of genetically engineered American
chestnut trees designed to spread and contaminate native wild relatives is a
real world example of the need for the application of the Precautionary
Principle. This would be the first ever release of a GMO plant to
replicate in the wild and there have been no risk assessments on the long-term
impacts on forest ecosystems, biodiversity, local communities, or on pollinators
that eat the genetically engineered tree pollen," added Anne Petermann of Global
Justice Ecology Project.
"In agriculture, genetic biotechnologies are oriented to
maintain business as usual: large monocultures that are destroying biodiversity.
At COP 15, we should focus on how to redesign working landscapes to
conserve and restore biodiversity while producing enough nutritious food. There
are many examples from agroecological farms around the world showing that this
is feasible," added Lucas A. Garibaldi, co-Chair of IPBES and co-author of the
Appeal.