Regional Consultation on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

27 March 2019

The Secretariat attended one of 5 regional consultation events to kick-off the development of the 2030 strategy which will provide the input for a series of 4 open ended working group meetings to draft a strategy for 2020 COP 15 in Bonn (Germany) from 18-25 March 2019.

Deputy Secretary, Lena Avellan, highlighted the work Contracting Parties carry out through OSPAR which also contributes to achieving the Aichi targets aims of the Convention for Biologival Diversity (CBD), informing of the parallel process of simultaneous updates of strategies of OSPAR and CBD, highlight the importance of marine biodiversity.

Regional Seas Conventions (RSC) and OSPAR with experience with marine biodiversity issues further off the coast in particular, could support states in their future implementation of actions to fulfil the CBD strategy.

There is a good alignment in timelines for updating of the strategy for CBD by 2020, OSPAR by 2020 and HELCOM and BarCon by 2021.

Marine biodiversity may become a specific theme/topic for further discussion in the open ended work process for the CBD in developing the 2030 strategy, here RSC input could be of high relevance.

There hasn’t been a very clear uptake of RSCs work in National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans in the past, and rather than a clear decision to leave it out this appears to be more due to a disconnect in Contracting Parties.

It could be relevant to develop a more institutional connection between RSC/UNEP secretariats and the CBD secretariat to support information flow.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Decision 14/34 establishes the process for developing the new strategy, https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-14/cop-14-dec-34-en.pdf

https://www.cbd.int/meetings/POST2020-WS-2019-02 meeting site includes a discussion document around which working groups were organised