The end of the year brought two major events to address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, and to decide the fate of humanity, and the future of all life on earth. After Egypt hosted the climate COP27 in November, all attention turned to the world meeting at the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 meeting in Canada for the single most important conversation about nature conservation for a generation.
Government meetings to set global targets for protecting nature through the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework provide opportunities to learn from the past and to transform our relationship with nature.
But for many Indigenous peoples and local communities, conservation remains an exclusionary and top-down practice that pits people against nature rather than supporting solutions that benefit both people and the environment.
We recognise the critical importance of increasing ocean protection. And we believe that conservation led by communities, for communities, is the only viable pathway to protection of our coastal seas at scale.
Our advocacy colleagues travelled to Montreal to join civil society, coastal, and fishing community leaders from all over the world and host an event with partner CoopeSoliDar to promote the voices and views of grassroots representatives and ocean defenders from six continents.
Here are some of the calls and stories from these community leaders that the world needs to hear and heed. Click on the image to read more.
