Colombia to host global biodiversity summit in October

NAIROBI -- Colombia will host the 16th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) from Oct 21 to Nov 1, the Latin American country's Minister of Environment Susana Muhamad announced Wednesday on the sidelines of the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) underway in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

"This is an opportunity for Colombia's indigenous communities to showcase a paradigm shift in the way the conservation of biodiversity should be undertaken globally," Muhamad said.

The launch of the logo of a fresh flower took place during the official announcement of Colombia's hosting of the UN biodiversity summit.

Muhamad said that COP16 will be a mixture of cultural and environmental biodiversity from Latin American countries.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary of the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said that delegates will share experiences, find solutions, and inspire partnerships toward tackling global biodiversity loss. He noted COP16 would allow local and indigenous communities to share their experiences and strengthen their links with biodiversity.

According to Cooper, indigenous communities in 13 ecoregions of Colombia and neighboring countries will share their knowledge of rare endemic species with the delegates. The COP16 will accelerate action and show progress towards turning the four goals and 23 targets of the biodiversity plan into nationally driven action.

He said that the delegates are expected to demonstrate the alignment of their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans with the Biodiversity Plan.

Cooper revealed that the fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation, which will take place in Nairobi from May 21-29, will provide an opportunity to review progress five months before COP16 gets underway in Cali, Colombia.

According to Cooper, COP16 will be the first biodiversity summit since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15 held in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada.

During COP16, governments will review the state of implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, develop the monitoring framework, and advance resource mobilization for the Global Biodiversity Framework. In addition, the summit will finalize and operationalize the multilateral mechanism for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources.