The second part of the UN Biodiversity Conference will convene from 7 to 19 December 2022 in Montréal, Canada. The Conference comprises meetings of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Protocols on biosafety and access and benefit-sharing. The Conference will be preceded by another round of negotiations on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and the issue of digital sequence information (3-5 December). For a discussion on the relationship between the Commission’s Framework for Action on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture and the GBF click here. 

The Ninth Session of the ITPGRFA Governing Body (GB-9) took place from 19- to 24 September 2022 gathering almost 600 participants in New Delhi, India, with a few attending virtually. It advanced negotiations on Farmers’ Rights and the enhancement of the Treaty’s Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing. It also celebrated farmers as guardians of crop diversity and the International Year of Millets. The next session of the Governing Body will be held in November 2023.
More information on the Ninth Session is available on the Treaty website.

Protecting the animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms that thrive in forests must become a fundamental goal of sustainable forest management worldwide, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and partners launched on 6 October 2022.
Forests are home to most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, yet forests and their biodiversity continue to be lost at an alarming rate.