Kunming Declaration – Full Text

China Environment editorial note:

• The Kunming Declaration (see full text in English here) was adopted today. Its main purpose is to reaffirm the global political commitment to tackling the biodiversity crisis, and continue the process of coming to an agreement on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The text is agreed by ministers of all parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which includes just about every country, except the USA.

Declaration from the High-Level Segment of the UN Biodiversity Conference 2020 (Part 1) under the theme:

“Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”
（Edited Final Version）

We, the Ministers and other heads of delegations, having met in Kunming, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China, in person, and remotely, on 12 and 13 October 2021, on the occasion of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference,¹ at the invitation of the Government of the People’s Republic of China,

Recalling the relevance of the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity: “Living in harmony with nature”,

Recalling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and recognizing that its full achievement across the environmental, social and economic dimensions is necessary to enable the realization of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity;

Emphasizing that biodiversity, and the ecosystem functions and services it provides, support all forms of life on Earth and underpin our human and planetary health and well-being, economic growth and sustainable development,

Concerned that the ongoing loss of biodiversity jeopardizes achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and other international goals and targets,

Recognizing that progress has been made in the last decade, under the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, but deeply concerned that such progress has been insufficient to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets,

Acknowledging with grave concern that the unprecedented and interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation and desertification, ocean degradation, and pollution, and increasing risks to human health and food security, pose an existential threat to our society, our culture, our prosperity and our planet,

Recognizing that these crises share many underlying drivers of change,

Recognizing also that the main direct drivers of biodiversity loss are land/sea use change, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species,

Acknowledging that indigenous peoples and local communities contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through the application of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices, and through their stewardship of biodiversity on their traditional lands and territories,

Recognizing also the important roles played by women and girls, and youth,

Stressing, therefore, that urgent and integrated action is needed, for transformative change, across all sectors of the economy and all parts of society, through policy coherence at all levels of government, and the realization of synergies at national level across relevant Conventions and multilateral organizations, to shape a future path for nature and people, where biodiversity is conserved and used sustainably, and the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources are shared fairly and equitably, as an integral part of sustainable development,

Noting that a combination of measures are needed to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity, including actions to address land and sea use change, enhance the conservation and restoration of ecosystems, mitigate climate change, reduce pollution, control invasive alien species and prevent overexploitation, as well as actions to transform economic and financial systems and to ensure sustainable production and consumption, and reduce waste, recognizing that none of these measures alone, nor in partial combinations, is sufficient and that the effectiveness of each measure is enhanced by the other,

Noting the call of many countries to protect and conserve 30% of land and sea areas through well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2030,

Reaffirming the Cancun Declaration on Mainstreaming the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity for Well-Being and the Sharm el Sheikh Declaration on Investing in Biodiversity for People and Planet,

Recalling the UN Summit on Biodiversity in September 2020, with the theme “Urgent action on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development”,

Taking note of the theme of the UN Biodiversity Conference 2020: “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”,

We declare that putting biodiversity on a path to recovery is a defining challenge of this decade, in the context of the UN Decade of Action for Sustainable Development, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, requiring strong political momentum to develop, adopt and implement an ambitious and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity framework that promotes the three objectives of the Convention in a balanced manner,

We Commit to:

1. Ensure the development, adoption and implementation of an effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework, that includes provision of the necessary means of implementation, in line with the Convention, and appropriate mechanisms for monitoring, reporting and review, to reverse the current loss of biodiversity and ensure that biodiversity is put on a path to recovery by 2030 at the latest, towards the full realization of the 2050 Vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature”;
2. Support, as appropriate,the development, adoption and implementation of an effectivepost-2020 Implementation Plan, and Capacity Building Action Plan, for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
3. Work across our respective governments to continue to promote the integration, or “mainstreaming” of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into decision-making including through the integration of the multiple values of biodiversity into policies, regulations, planning processes, poverty reduction strategies and economic accounting, and strengthen cross-sectoral coordinating mechanisms on biodiversity;
4. Accelerate and strengthen the development and update of the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, to ensure the effective implementation of the post 2020 global biodiversity framework at national level;
5. Improve the effectiveness, and increase the coverage, globally, of area-based conservation and management through enhancing and establishing effective systems of protected areas and adopting other effective area-based conservation measures, as well as spatial planning tools, to protect species and genetic diversity and reduce or eliminate threats to biodiversity, recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and ensuring their full and effective participation;
6. Strengthen sustainable use of biodiversity for meeting the needs of people;
7. Actively enhance the global environmental legal framework and strengthen environmental law at national level, and its enforcement, to protect biodiversity and to combat its illegal use, and to respect, protect and promote human rights obligations when taking actions to protect biodiversity;
8. Step up our efforts to ensure, through the Convention, the Nagoya Protocol and other agreements as appropriate, the fair and equitable benefit-sharing arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, taking into account the context of digital sequence information on genetic resources;
9. Strengthen measures, and their implementation, for the development, assessment, regulation, management, and transfer, as appropriate, of relevant biotechnologies, with a view to promote the benefits and to reduce the risks, including those associated with the use and release of living modified organisms which are likely to have adverse environmental impacts;
10. Increase the application of ecosystem-based approaches to address biodiversity loss, restore degraded ecosystems, boost resilience, mitigate and adapt to climate change, support sustainable food production, promote health, and contribute to addressing other challenges, enhancing One Health and other holistic approaches and ensuring benefits across economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, through robust safeguards for environmental and social protection, highlighting that such ecosystem-based approaches do not replace the priority actions needed to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement;²
11. Step up actions to reduce the negative effects of human activities on the ocean to protect marine and coastal biodiversity and strengthen the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems to climate change;
12. Ensure that post-pandemic recovery policies, programmes and plans contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, promoting sustainable and inclusive development;
13. Work with ministries of finance and economy, and other relevant ministries, to reform incentive structures, eliminating, phasing out or reforming subsidies and other incentives that are harmful to biodiversity, while protecting people in vulnerable situations, to mobilize additional financial resources from all sources, and align all financial flows in support of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;
14. Increase the provision of financial, technological and capacity building support to developing countries necessary to implement the post 2020 global biodiversity framework and in line with the provisions of the Convention;
15. Enable the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, women, youth, civil society, local governments and authorities, academia, the business and financial sectors, and other relevant stakeholders, and encourage them to make voluntary commitments in the context of the Sharm el Sheikh to Kunming Action Agenda for Nature and People, and to continue to build the momentum for the implementation of the post 2020 global biodiversity framework;
16. Further develop communication, education and public awareness tools on biodiversity to support changes in behaviour towards the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;
17. Further enhance collaboration and coordinate actions with ongoing multilateral environmental agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,  the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and the biodiversity-related conventions, as well as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other related international and multilateral processes, to promote the protection, conservation, sustainable management and restoration of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity, while contributing to other sustainable development goals, aligned to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

[This Declaration will be submitted to the General Assembly of United Nations, the 2022 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and the second part of the 5th United Nations Environment Assembly.]

1Comprising: the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the fourth meeting of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization.

2 Ecosystem-based approaches may also be referred to as “Nature based solutions” as per SBSTTA recommendation 23/2, paragraph 4”.