"Human rights must be respected when conserving biodiversity"

There are still abundant intact ecosystems and landscapes on our continent; for example, wetlands with an incredible wealth of birds. But we are seeing a rapid decline in this biodiversity, mainly due to a neo-colonial development model and global capital flows. Many African economies are export-oriented and based on the exploitation of natural resources such as oil, natural gas, coal and precious metals. These natural resources should be used to promote industrialisation and development. This is also what the African Union's Agenda 2063, a kind of master plan for the continent's future, envisions. Don't get me wrong, we too want Africa to develop – but by making sustainable use of the continent's biodiversity and in a way that primarily benefits the local people.

We have long since exceeded the planetary boundaries and are on the verge of ecological collapse. But there are no signs of the new framework taking due account of this urgency. I've taken part in numerous meetings, most recently in March 2022 as an observer at the negotiations in Geneva. It seemed to me that the individual countries were there first and foremost to negotiate their own national interests and those of their industries, and not to agree a strong global framework for the planet and humanity. We must hold governments accountable in order to safeguard our existence and enable every one of us to live a meaningful life. This calls for imagination and an economy that is no longer geared towards growth. But instead of addressing the key drivers, countries are once again trying to find market-based solutions for the crisis, for example through 'biodiversity offsets' to compensate for biodiversity loss. Climate change mitigation efforts have shown that offsets don't work.

The danger we see is that governments will now think: let's protect the 30% so that we can continue to exploit the rest as usual. Moreover, that 30% could fall under the control of large nature conservation organisations that set up their own protected areas while in some cases maintaining links with the agricultural and fossil fuel industries. We fear that local communities could be displaced and prevented from meeting their basic needs under this pretext. Human rights must be respected when conserving biodiversity. In other words, it should not be permissible to designate a particular area as protected without the consent of the local and indigenous populations.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania, a nature reserve bordering the Serengeti, is a good example of this. The Masai there are being displaced systematically from their ancestral land by the government. They brought the case before the East African Court of Justice to defend their rights, but the judges accepted the government's reasoning. We are seeing similar developments in many places. Nature is being fenced in, while unsustainable tourism is promoted and biodiversity commercialised. This fortress conservation model has its roots in colonialism – and a long history in Africa.

One indication was the pact made between CropLife, an association representing all the major agrochemical companies, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at the 2021 Food Systems Summit. Multilateral organisations also tend to staff their secretariats with people close to the industry. And we can see that the biodiversity debate is generally being hijacked. There is a deliberate cover-up of the key drivers of environmental destruction, even though the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has long since provided scientific evidence of these. Take, for example, the large-scale use of highly toxic pesticides in agriculture or the excessive use of synthetic fertilisers. That's why we have to transform agricultural production and the food system as quickly as possible.

The transformation towards a food system based on agroecology, with high diversity, natural inputs and long-term preservation of soil quality is one example. Systems like this deliver social, ecological and economic benefits to society. We're not calling for such a transformation to happen overnight, but some of the building blocks could at least be put into place. Agroecology would also be an extremely effective strategy in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as in building the resilience of vulnerable groups. However, this would require a shift in the balance of power – away from a few large corporations towards many local, decentralised actors.

No, it has tended to be a case of 'business as usual', with the focus on the wrong solutions. Such as genome editing ‒ genetic engineering methods that allegedly produce better seeds which are supposed to help plants cope better with climate change. Seed and agrochemical companies in particular are strongly pushing for more biotechnology, and major grain exporters like Brazil, Argentina, the USA and Canada support this approach. On the other hand, far too little attention is being paid to the important role smallholder farmers play in feeding the world.

Unfortunately, we didn't receive a lot of support, not even from the African countries themselves. Bolivia was one of the few countries that stood out during the preparation of the framework agreement. It put forward a progressive proposal calling for the rights of nature to be recognised and enshrined in international environmental law, and for the negotiations to focus less on people. In doing so, it represented the worldview of indigenous groups, who often retain a much greater awareness of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. We could learn a lot from them when it comes to protecting biodiversity.