Press Conference: Critical Views: Friends of the Earth International's Position, UN Convention on Biodiversity - COP 17

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. My name is Nele Marien. I am Forest and Biodiversity Coordinator of Friends of the Earth International, and I have with me Deva Lingam, who is the Co-Chair of Friends of the Earth International, and one of my steering group members, Leon Dulce, who is from Friends of the Earth Philippines. Deva is from Friends of the Earth Malaysia. Friends of the Earth International is a network of 70 organizations, 72 organizations all across the globe and all of our organizations work on environmental justice, looking always with a very broad perspective, linking the different crises the peoples on the ground are facing everywhere. So we look into climate change, biodiversity, human rights, economic issues, gender issues and how they all interrelate. So it is from this perspective, bringing from the different views from around the globe that we look at this, this biodiversity cop and it's from this perspective that we also bring our positions here together. So we want to, we have the honor of having the first press conference of the of the the cop. So that's great. We want to bring our visions here. So hopefully we can take them along during the different moments of this COP. So I will start speaking about the global review and mainstreaming a few topics like that. Then Teiva will talk about economic issues, resource mobilization, and Leon will talk about issues related to indigenous peoples, territories on the ground, rights-based views, et cetera. And after that, we will give back to you for questions from the room, giving specifically also priority to So starting my own presentation now. So from Friends of the Earth, we have been looking at the Global Biodiversity Framework since long, since before it was started, and we had a number of issues we really thought were very important that should be in the Global Biodiversity Framework. We really thought it was important to have a strong attendance to addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss. And when we now look at the global biodiversity framework and its implementation, we see that actually there is a lack of attending the drivers. So on the one hand, we see that the GBF as it is, it's not being implemented sufficiently. And there's a lot of talk about that in this conference. You will hear it everywhere. There is not sufficient countries who have handed in their reports. And even the countries who have handed it in, they all recognize there is a of implementation to lesser or more degree, but that is not the only thing. There's actually more questions to be asked. So, for example, if there are issues in the GPF which go in the wrong direction, there is no use in pushing further implementation. And this should be part of the global review. So from our perspective, we look through the GBF and we see that there are several what we call false solutions. So issues that actually will push biodiversity further down the drain. And this will not help biodiversity. So that is something that needs to be studied. It shouldn't be just Friends of the Earth position. This should really be taken up by broader works, the IP best should be looking into which are the biodiversity measures that actually deliver for biodiversity on the ground, that deliver for the communities who are caring for biodiversity on the ground, and which are the measures that don't. In Friends of the Earth perspective, issues such as nature positive, nature-based solutions and other measures which are actually intrinsically related to offsetting biodiversity, they don't work, but this should be thoroughly studied and taken on board for next iterations of biodiversity policy frameworks. Other false solutions are, for example, debt for nature swaps, on which we have a publication. There are things like certification, et cetera. So this is our first way of looking at the global review and the issues that are going in the wrong direction and also issues that are completely missing. When we are looking at an overall elements, what is actually driving biodiversity loss? And we see that there's a lot of economic drivers such as finance flows such as legal frameworks that undermine biodiversity. Our countries can't even increase their legislation because they get in trouble in international arenas. So these are also issues that really need addressing. What we really think should be happening is more global regulations that stop corporations to do their undermining biodiversity. For example, more rules on what levels of toxicity is possible, rules on prohibitions, stronger prohibitions to destroy nature, valuable ecosystems for further extractivism, et cetera, et cetera. What we see in this convention is that this kind of global regulation is not being talked about. Instead, we see a mainstreaming biodiversity in all sectors kind of work element. This mainstreaming biodiversity in all sectors, it brings forward again a lot of voluntary measures, a lot of measures that actually accommodate business to keep on doing their their profitable business and maybe adjust it a little bit but not stopping the biodiversity destruction. So in our view this needs a complete overhaul of the way how we address this, because otherwise biodiversity will not be saved in the long run, and this is really important. So I will stop here for now. I will pass on to my colleague, Teiva Lingam, who will speak about the biodiversity and the resource mobilization for it. Teiva, please.

Thank you very much, Neila, and good morning to everyone, and thank you for coming to our press conference today. I'm from Malaysia, and as we sit here today, the forest fires in Kalimantan have already affected more than 57,000 hectares of land, with haze once again impacting communities across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. And the last worst haze that we had was sometime in 1997. And then about 10 years or some time later, we had one. And this time, the haze situation in Southeast Asia is-- I mean, we have all been affected very badly by the haze. But this is really not just a forest fire crisis. It is a stark reminder of the deeper biodiversity crisis which is unfolding across the global south. And we have heard this over and over again, so this is really nothing new. And on top of that, across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, countries are being pulled into an expanding extractive frontier, driven by global demand for critical minerals, energy, and land. Mining for nickel, lithium, copper, zinc, and rare earth minerals is rapidly expanding across Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. At the same time, logging and large-scale monoculture plantations continue to spread across some of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems. Indigenous communities are being evicted out of their own customary territories, and fishers are losing their territories to fish. The reality is that countries rich in biodiversity are being asked to shoulder environmental costs of a global economy that remains heavily dependent on extraction, and we see this happening right now. While the economic benefits are often distributed globally, the biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, public health impacts, and community costs are often borne locally and mainly by national governments from developing countries. Now, this raises a fundamental question for COP17. Are parties serious about tackling the real drivers of biodiversity loss? and mobilizing the finance needed to address them? Or will negotiations once again become consumed by brackets, procedural debates, and text deletions? So ecosystems do not respond to negotiated language, and forest habitats continue to burn. Habitats continue to disappear, and indigenous peoples and local communities continue to face the impacts of biodiversity loss. And if you look at the IPBES Nexus Assessment, it is clear that unsustainable resource extraction is a major driver of biodiversity decline. And mining cannot be viewed in isolation from these impacts, especially on habitats, water systems, food security, livelihoods, and community health. So this is why biodiversity finance is not a secondary issue in the implementation of the KMGBF. It is a central test of political commitment. And developing countries are expected to conserve biodiversity, restore ecosystem, regulate biosafety, and implement ambitious national biodiversity strategies while simultaneously managing debt burdens, fiscal constraints, and growing development pressures. Yet the Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes that biodiversity protection is a shared global responsibility. And we all know under Article 20, developed countries committed to provide new and additional financial resources to enable developing countries to meet the agreed incremental cost of implementing the convention. And the KMGBF actually reinforces the obligation. Target 19A calls for international biodiversity finance, as we all know. and especially from developed countries to developing countries. And it should reach at least 20 billion annually by 2025 and 30 billion annually by 2030. But where is this money? We still don't have that money. However, current levels of biodiversity finance remain really far below what is needed. The finance gap continues to grow, even as I speak here, as developing countries face increasing pressure to to deliver on ambitious biodiversity targets. Now, if parties want to demonstrate that they are serious about halting and reversing biodiversity loss, then COP17 must deliver credible and predictable new and additional biodiversity finance at the scale required. A finance agenda that prioritises leverage and private capital can pull us in the wrong direction. Too often, it shifts the attention away from public finance, debt relief, fair taxation, and measures to curb harmful subsidies and financial flows. It instead promotes instruments such as biodiversity credits, green bonds, or payments for ecosystem services as solutions to the gap. Now, I just want to end it with a message, and this is our message to developing countries. And this is a very clear message to developing countries that you must stand firm on biodiversity finance. You should not be expected to accept language, decision language, or implementation burdens, or monitoring requirements that expand your obligations without firm guarantees of the means to implement them. And our message to developed countries is equally clear. If you are serious about conserving biodiversity and recognize that biodiversity loss already affects us all, then match that ambition with action and deliver finance that is public, new, and additional, predictable, and without unnecessary bureaucracy. Above all, it must be provided through fair cooperation, free from political pressure or coercion. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Teva. Before we continue with the next speaker, I want to briefly make a little promotion for our new publication, which is called Permission to Destroy. And it actually brings five different case studies from around our federation, where in very different cases we have seen how biodiversity gets undermined despite the commitments that countries have made to the GBF. Countries do give permission for activities that are destroyed for biodiversity for I'm sorry countries do give permission to industries to other activities that destroy biodiversity they actively give these permissions sometimes this is linked to pressure for international Finance for international investment Etc sometimes it's just actively pursued but this is a permission Gap that really is very difficult and it needs to be addressed as well as well as the drivers that lead to that Gap so we have cases from the Philippines from Indonesia we have people in the room here from Costa Rica, from Mozambique and from Albania. So please have a look to that publication. Without further ado, I now want to pass on the word to Leon, who will speak about community impact of biodiversity problems. Please, Leon.

Thank you, Nele. Good morning, colleagues and friends in the media. I am Leon Dulce. I am the campaign support and linkages coordinator of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center. We are the Philippines member group of the Friends of the Earth International. LRC works with indigenous peoples and other underserved, marginalized communities on issues around the nexus of indigenous peoples' rights and environmental justice. For Indigenous Peoples and for other forest defenders in the front lines of the Philippines, what the CBD has right now is a justice gap that fails to safeguard our human rights and consequently undermines our ability to enact real solutions. In our latest report on the state of Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines, We estimated that 2.8 million hectares, or 51% of the total land area of formal ancestral domain titles, are potentially conflated with various projects such as forest retainments, plantations, critical minerals, fossil fuels, and renewable energy and infrastructure. Indigenous territories are responsible for the de facto protection of 75% of our remaining forest cover. The drivers of deforestation are themselves the drivers of displacement for the Indigenous. we looked into the case of the Kirintiken, Ilentungan, and Manuvu tribe in southern Philippines. A 195-hectare banana agroforestry plantation owned by Kenemer Foods International is being developed as a potential carbon forest and biodiversity offset linked to a global value chain across the Netherlands, France, and various other countries in the global north. The plantation, however, grows on disputed lands belonging to the Kirinteken Ilentungen Menuvu tribe, annexed to the Philippines colonial land titling regime. The Kirinteken Ilentungen Menuvu village of Serukadang is only able to live within seven hectares of their 2,084-hectare ancestral domain because of the Kenemer plantation and other land grabs throughout their territory. And only through the tribe's land recovery effort of reclaiming their territories through the restoration forests using native tree species. This contestation for such a small piece of land came with great cost. Two of their datus or tribal chieftains have been killed. At least three harassment charges have been filed against their members and multiple incidents of threats and intimidation including an attempt to fence them out of their seven hectare land last May 2026 have been on record. This is but one of 27 case studies that we have documented in the Philippines in 2025 alone. It reflects the blindness of the global review to the state of Indigenous Peoples' rights, with only 18% of parties submitting targets for environmental human rights defenders, and the consequences of inertia in the implementation of the subsidiary body on Article 8. We therefore urge the parties to the CBD to close this justice gap and unconditionally support the rights-based solutions of Indigenous Peoples and forest defenders. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Leon. Before I pass the word to all of you for questions, I want to briefly show you this position paper which we have put up. You can find on the website www.foei.org. You can find this position paper there and all the issues we have talked about, you can find there. I now want to open the floor for questions from the floor. We would give priority to questions from press people. If there are none, then we would also open the floor for others. Can we pass a mic to Mr. Please.

Hi, thank you. I'm Fermin from Argentina. for Dialogue Earth. Just one question. One of the instruments that has seen a little bit more movement on finance is the TFF from Brazil, from the COP30 presidency on native forests. I wanted to get a sense on the impression that you've seen on that traction. We have the 10 billion deadline that should be met by the end of the year. We got 7 billion so far. Are you expecting any more movement or commitments from countries? Thank you.

Are there any other questions? So we take a few together. Yes, please.

Thank you. My name is Aurelie Veronneau. I'm from a French media. You talked about global regulations. Do you have examples of what it could be? Since I assume that often there are nationals decisions, national laws, so what could it be? Thank you.

Hi, I'm a journalist from India. I just wanted to understand some of the people who are donating, can you hear me? So some of the companies that are donating money to these funds, they may have some controversial history. And one of the things that I was thinking about civil society movement was that you have been active in demanding some accountability from companies. When it comes to funding, when they start funding it, how do you want to bring that accountability in this mechanism?

It's quite difficult to understand you. It's your question about accountability. Did I understand that right?

I think I have to phrase it properly. So I wanted to understand companies that are funding, giving funds to contributing funds to these funds that are set up, several funds under CBD. They may have controversial history and they may use it for greenwashing. Is civil society keeping a watch on those kind of donations. You got it.

Okay, we'll try to answer these questions and then see if there's more time for more questions from the room. TFFF, right? So, yes, I think it's been interesting to see Brazil coming with a bit of an alternative proposal. I think what we have been happy about is that it's not quite offsetting, which is something we have very often denounced as a false solution. Nevertheless, we are very worried about the FFF because we see it's kind of meant to be financed by the profits from industries and the most profitable industries are very often exactly those that destroy forests. So there seems to be quite a strong contradiction there between where the funds come from and what are they trying to protect. Also, these kind of funds, they are part of a global financial architecture which is really undermining biodiversity as such. So there is quite a big tension And there is actually also a Friends of the Earth position paper that was produced for last COP, for last climate COP, which you can also find, and I can help you with that afterwards. Thank you very much for the question about the permissions. Yes, we can give examples. For example, in Albania, we have a case of, and you will probably have read about it in the media, there is the Flamingo Revolution going on since long, since several months. The government itself has decided to undermine its own regulation on protected areas. In many different protected areas, many different cases, the one which really was the drip that made the whole population explode and go on protest is a huge beautiful area and I'm going to pronounce it wrong, but in that area they are going to build a huge luxury hotel linked to Trump family and things like that. And this hotel, like already the access ways for it, the destruction that is creating this hotel is really huge in an area that was actually used by local population to just visit the beach, to go for a walk, for have some local fisheries, et cetera. So the government itself is deciding to undermine its own regulation. I think this is a really strong case, but we have five case studies in that publication, and we will do a next press conference specifically on those cases as well, so please come back to us on that. I will pass the word to Teiva to respond to the question of Mr.

Thank you for the question. And I think what is really important about the finance that comes through, especially if it might cause greenwashing, actually the test is very simple. And we should see whether the finance that comes in actually stops the harm at its source. whether it reduces emissions, whether, you know, and it reduces biodiversity loss in real terms, and whether it respects rights, whether it remains open to public scrutiny. Now, if the funds that come in causes destruction, you know, funds destruction on the one hand by advertising green projects, etc, then that is really greenwashing, right? And that should not be, you know, where is the accountability for that? So what I would like to stress is that the accountability really requires a lot of transparency, independent verification, community oversight, and access to remedy, as well as penalties where the claims are false. So all these need to be taken into account, especially when we're looking at private finance coming into the picture. And that is exactly why we are saying When we are talking about stopping, halting biodiversity loss, I think it's really very important to focus on the public finance because that's where it is missing. We need public finance and we need public finance fast. And that is exactly why at this COP, I think that discussion needs to happen. Of course, there is all this discussion about, you know, having finance from all available sources, but we need that public finance first. And that needs to go to developing countries that often we find that, you know, have the biggest biodiversity source and which are, which where they are being lost at a very rapid pace.

We'll go for another round of three questions, but before I want to briefly pass the words to Leon, who wants to say also about TFF and indigenous people's reaction to that. So please, Leon.

Yes, just a quick addition to the TFF issue. I think one of the main contentions for indigenous peoples and environmental human rights defenders is the lack of clear rules to protect the rights of forest peoples, to protect the rights of indigenous communities within forest areas targeted for the expansion of forests under the TFF. little or no safeguards as well. So it bodes the same problem on whether it's REDD+ or whether it's the TFF, if there are no guarantees that even if you use satellite-based technology to measure your forest growth, that you do not undermine communities already living within the forest communities. So this is a concern that we will closely monitor with regards to the implementation of the TFF.

Thank you very much, Leon. We have time for three more quick questions. Yes, please.

Hello, I'm Lola. I work for a media magazine, EVN Report. And I was wondering, when you talk about full solutions, could you give any specific examples of the full solutions that they're giving through the framework? Thank you.

Hello, I am from Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment, a local NGO group, and we know that we have the draft report on the progress of Kunming-Munreal targets and what is the position of Friends of the Earth International? Are we on track? Particularly, I'm interested in the pollution nexus of it, the target seven in relation to the lands and the use of particularly highly hazardous pesticides. You think we are on track? Thank you very much.

Hi. Hi. This is David Olvera from from from from Hafer NGO. And my question is related if in in in a fact that these discussions in the CBDs talking about the public resources, how can you think that it will be guaranteed to be that the NGOs of the governments could be able to access to that finance? Because one of the big achievements to access to the public finance is the rules and the protocols, and sometimes it's not easy to access to them. And when you want to be in the line of the nature on the protection of the safe as whatever is necessary to be in related with the conservation. When the NGOs applies for fundings, the process is too long, it's not easy at all, and it's not possible to guarantee the work that we do on the field.

Thank you very much for the questions. One more, okay.

Two more if I may. Danas from Lithuanian delegation. One short question about these false solutions you mentioned, certification as one of them. Is certification 100% false solution or are there any exceptions? It's a first question. Another one is more philosophical. In all this financing perspective, looking at the global level, don't you think that biodiversity loss is currently losing focus in all this geopolitical situation and that's why financing is going down? Just your thoughts on that.

Thank you for that. I think indeed there are lots of structural issues and I agree with you that the current geopolitical situation, etc. is definitely one of them. There's lots of others, such as the global financial architecture, the global legal system, including things like international investor states, this dispute settlement, which doesn't allow countries to up their regulations. There's many different overarching things and I absolutely agree with that the current situation, geopolitical, is also very difficult. I'll take the two things about false solutions together. So there's actually a whole set of false solutions. False solutions are made mostly when whatever is being proposed actually has the risk of further undermining, be it biodiversity or the rights of peoples. I'll give two examples now. One is offsetting, biodiversity offsetting, which either gets done by saying, OK, we destroy this area and we restore another one. But mostly that restoration in very many cases is then done by, for example, a tree plantation in an area that should be a savanna or something like that. We have cases like that. And another way in which offsetting is done is saying, OK, you destroy an area here, for example, for a mine, and you are offsetting it by not destroying something else. That means that your baseline is the destruction. And there's something completely wrong there. But that is what a lot of the offsetting is built on. We have one of the case studies I talked about is in Indonesia. There's people here in the room who can talk about that. Um, certification, your question there, not necessarily all certification is bad, but most of the certification is built upon. corporations doing self-reporting. And when we look into the details and we have lots of reports, it's almost always greenwashing. The problem is then that governments start saying like, oh, let's take this certification label as a basis for regulation. And then you're completely turning the world around because it should be governments putting the rules and controlling corporations. But actually what it is becoming is governments basing the rules upon corporations self-reporting, and that is really problematic. So these are the kind of things why we really go against false solutions. I'm trying to remember all the questions, but I think you wanted to say something about false solutions as well, and you want to say something about the finance, and I'll try to remember what else was on the-- go ahead.

So precisely the case study in the Philippines of a banana plantation that has applied and actually succeeded in receiving and retiring credits from Vera, that's the Canamar Foods International Plantation in the southern part of the Philippines. It was able to secure carbon credit certification, it was able to secure biodiversity credits certification, but the whole process of getting or securing this accreditation was not cognizant of what is happening to the indigenous peoples on the ground. Indigenous peoples were being pitted against farmers and it was resulting into bloody encounters by armed groups that are working for the plantation or in service of the interests of the plantation. So this violent realities on the ground do not get considered in the certification processes. So we believe that there should be other ways of ensuring that there are rules on the ground instead of corporations having their own say in how they would assess their track records in terms of Indigenous Peoples' Rights, due diligence and similar other regulations.

Thank you very much, Leon. Very briefly on the question on target 7 in the global review, I think in general what we see in the global review is that parties are not on track to do what they need. In general, what we see is that there are overarching things that actually push to the non-implementation. For example, what's the role of companies that actually produce all the pesticides, etc. How do they mingle in all of this? I think these are the key questions to ask. And are these things being addressed in the global review and in the way how we keep implementing? That's the most important question there. I'll pass the words to Deva for the last question on the finance issue.

So if I heard you correctly, you're talking about the cumbersome way of applying for finance, right? How difficult it is. And it's very true because I think not just not just for indigenous peoples or local communities, countries themselves are finding it very difficult to apply. I mean, even where I come from, from Malaysia, I've heard that they've submitted applications and either it was rejected or it takes a long time for them to access these funds. So I think what's really important is how do we create, one, is direct access, for example, for indigenous communities so that they can, indigenous communities and in just people and local community, how they can directly access the funds, because we know that they are the main stewards of biodiversity and they should be given these funds to basically manage projects within their area, that's one. And the second thing is, I think we cannot treat all projects the same way. For example, a huge project a country that is asking for money for a particular large project cannot treat that the same as a community that is requesting funds for biodiversity. They have to be looked at differently. So in terms of auditing process or submitting of documents or consultation, monitoring, all of these need to be looked at differently. And you cannot expect the indigenous communities to, you know, to kind of give all these documents without any help externally. And similarly, even before they apply for funds, before funds are applied for, there must be some form of help given to national governments and even to communities who are, what do you call that, applying for these funds. I think all this is very important. These are all the nitty-gritty details of how to apply for these funds. But in the first place, we need to have that finance first. that would be easily accessible to the different parties, to the different countries or to the different community groups. So I think we need to be able to look at that first.

Thank you, Deva. And I think we are actually over time. So thank you all for your interest. Thanks to the secretariat for allowing us going over time. Thanks to the interpreters who went over time. So thank you very much. And I hope to see you back again. We will have more press conferences, for example, about a report we are doing together with allies, which is the elephants on the room. You will hear more about that and also about our case studies. So please stay tuned. Thank you very much.

Thank you.