Convention on Biological Diversity
- NOTOC**
Convention on Biological Diversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an international treaty that provides a global framework for conserving biological diversity, promoting the sustainable use of nature, and ensuring the fair sharing of benefits associated with genetic resources. The Convention emerged from the international sustainable-development movement, was opened for signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and entered into force in 1993. It has since developed into a broad system of international cooperation covering protected areas, ecosystem restoration, species conservation, genetic resources, invasive species, agriculture, forests, marine ecosystems, traditional knowledge, biodiversity finance, scientific monitoring, and public participation.
The CBD operates through Conferences of the Parties, scientific and implementation bodies, national biodiversity strategies, reporting requirements, specialized programmes, financial mechanisms, and related international agreements. Its modern agenda is centered on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at COP15 in 2022 as the principal global framework for biodiversity action through 2030 and toward longer-term goals for 2050.
From the Convention to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
The CBD's earlier global strategy was the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, which included twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets organized around five strategic goals. These targets sought to mainstream biodiversity into public policy, reduce pressures on ecosystems, improve conservation, enhance ecosystem benefits, and strengthen implementation.
The Aichi period helped establish biodiversity as a major international policy issue but did not halt global biodiversity decline. Negotiations therefore began on a post-2020 framework intended to increase ambition and create stronger links between conservation objectives and national implementation.
At COP15 in Montreal in December 2022, governments adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework contains four long-term goals for 2050 and twenty-three targets for 2030. It seeks not simply to expand protected areas but to address the wider causes of biodiversity loss through restoration, sustainable production, pollution reduction, invasive-species management, economic reform, finance, planning, business responsibility, access to information, participation, and benefit-sharing.
One of the framework's most prominent commitments is commonly known as 30x30: the goal of conserving at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine areas by 2030. The framework also calls for at least 30 percent of degraded ecosystems to be under effective restoration by the same date.
Major Global Biodiversity Targets
The twenty-three targets of the Kunming-Montreal framework cover ecological, economic, and social dimensions of biodiversity policy.
Target 1 promotes biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning and management of land and sea use. Its purpose is to reduce the loss of areas with high biodiversity importance and ecological integrity while recognizing the rights and roles of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Target 2 calls for at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine ecosystems to be under effective restoration by 2030. Restoration is intended to produce measurable ecological and human-well-being benefits rather than simply count individual restoration projects.
Target 3 establishes the 30x30 conservation objective. The target goes beyond the percentage of land and sea formally designated as protected. It also emphasizes ecological representation, connectivity, effective management, equitable governance, and recognition of Indigenous and traditional territories.
Target 4 addresses threatened species, extinction risk, genetic diversity, and human-wildlife coexistence. It reflects recognition that expanding protected areas alone cannot prevent all species losses.
Target 6 seeks to reduce the threat posed by invasive alien species through prevention, management of introduction pathways, control, eradication, and measures to reduce the rate at which new invasive species become established.
Target 7 links biodiversity conservation with pollution policy, including the reduction of excess nutrients, pesticide risks, hazardous chemicals, and plastic pollution.
Target 10 addresses agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry. It calls for these production systems to be managed in ways that maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions while supporting sustainable production.
Target 12 focuses on cities and other densely populated areas. It promotes urban biodiversity, green and blue spaces, ecological connectivity, biodiversity-inclusive planning, and more equitable access to nature.
Target 14 calls for biodiversity and its values to be incorporated into policies, planning, environmental assessment, national accounting, fiscal systems, and decision-making across government and the economy.
Target 15 extends the biodiversity agenda into the private and financial sectors by encouraging businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their biodiversity-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities.
Target 18 calls for governments to identify and reform, phase out, or eliminate incentives and subsidies that harm biodiversity while increasing incentives that encourage conservation and sustainable use.
Target 19 addresses the large financial resources required for implementation. The framework calls for the mobilization of at least $200 billion annually by 2030 from domestic, international, public, private, and other sources.
Target 21 concerns biodiversity information and knowledge. It seeks to make data and information more accessible to governments and the public while recognizing traditional knowledge and appropriate safeguards.
Target 22 addresses participation, access to information and justice, and protection of environmental human-rights defenders, with particular attention to Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Target 23 requires implementation to be gender-responsive and recognizes the rights, participation, leadership, and access to resources of women and girls.
National Implementation and the Implementation Gap
The CBD depends heavily on implementation by individual countries. A central instrument is the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), through which governments translate global biodiversity commitments into domestic targets, policies, institutions, programmes, and conservation actions.
Following adoption of the Kunming-Montreal framework, countries were expected to revise their biodiversity strategies, communicate national targets, use agreed indicators, and incorporate biodiversity considerations into broader economic and sectoral planning. National reports provide another mechanism for assessing progress.
The international monitoring system combines national reports, indicators, scientific evidence, technical assessments, and global review. The framework therefore attempts to connect broad political commitments with measurable results.
Evidence assembled during the first years of implementation nevertheless indicates a continuing gap between international ambition and national action. Research examining national plans has found that domestic protection and restoration commitments frequently do not yet match the ambition of the global framework. The first draft global assessment of collective progress released in 2026 similarly described substantial international engagement while concluding that the scale and speed of implementation remained insufficient for achieving the 2030 targets.
This implementation gap has become one of the central challenges facing the CBD.
COP16, COP17, and Global Biodiversity Governance
COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024 was the first major Biodiversity Conference following adoption of the Kunming-Montreal framework and was therefore an important test of whether governments could move from negotiating targets to implementing them.
The meeting produced progress in areas including Indigenous participation and the sharing of benefits associated with digital genetic information. At the same time, negotiations exposed continuing disagreements over biodiversity finance, monitoring, and implementation. The Cali session ended without resolving several major issues, requiring negotiations to resume in Rome in 2025.
Subsequent CBD meetings have continued work on resource mobilization, monitoring, reporting, capacity-building, benefit-sharing, protected areas, synthetic biology, marine biodiversity, and sustainable wildlife management. Preparations for COP17 have placed increasing attention on the first global review of progress under the Kunming-Montreal framework.
The CBD's institutional structure also includes technical and scientific cooperation centres, public education and awareness programmes, and cooperation with other biodiversity-related conventions, including agreements concerning migratory species, wetlands, international wildlife trade, world heritage, and plant genetic resources.
Biodiversity Finance, Subsidies, and Business
Financing is one of the most difficult aspects of implementing international biodiversity commitments. Conservation, ecosystem restoration, monitoring, enforcement, institutional capacity, and sustainable management all require substantial and continuing financial resources.
The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund was created to help developing countries implement the Kunming-Montreal framework. Its activities include support for national planning, governance, policy development, biodiversity projects, capacity-building, and conservation action.
Target 18 seeks to address another side of the financial equation by reforming subsidies and incentives that encourage biodiversity loss. Policy discussions increasingly include biodiversity-positive incentives, payments for ecosystem services, green financial instruments, biodiversity credits, tradable mechanisms, and reforms to environmentally harmful subsidies.
Target 15 also brings corporations and financial institutions more directly into biodiversity policy. Nature-related financial disclosure initiatives are intended to help companies and investors identify how their activities depend on ecosystems, affect biodiversity, and create financial or operational risks.
The broader objective is not simply to raise money for conservation projects but to redirect financial systems so that public and private capital no longer systematically contributes to biodiversity decline.
Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Knowledge, and Benefit-Sharing
The Kunming-Montreal framework gives significant attention to the roles and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. Its implementation principles recognize their importance as custodians of biodiversity and emphasize traditional knowledge, participation, rights, and free, prior, and informed consent.
COP16 strengthened this dimension of CBD governance, including through institutional advances concerning Article 8(j), which addresses traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices.
Benefit-sharing has also become increasingly important because modern biotechnology and scientific research can make extensive commercial use of genetic information without physically transferring biological material.
This issue is reflected in negotiations over digital sequence information on genetic resources. The Cali Fund was established as part of a multilateral mechanism intended to receive contributions associated with commercial uses of such information and direct benefits toward biodiversity implementation, including support involving Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The CBD framework therefore increasingly treats conservation, scientific research, economic development, Indigenous rights, and the distribution of benefits from biological resources as interconnected policy questions.
30x30, Protected Areas, and Ecosystem Restoration
The 30x30 target has become one of the most recognizable elements of contemporary international conservation policy. However, research and policy assessments repeatedly emphasize that numerical coverage alone cannot guarantee biodiversity protection.
Protected and conserved areas must be appropriately located, ecologically representative, connected where appropriate, effectively governed, and successfully managed. A country could formally designate 30 percent of its territory while still failing to protect important species or ecosystems if the protected areas are poorly located or continue to experience damaging activities.
Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) provide another pathway for recognizing areas outside conventional protected-area systems that nevertheless achieve meaningful biodiversity conservation. Their contribution depends on accurate identification, effective governance, and demonstrated conservation outcomes.
Restoration presents similar measurement challenges. Counting the number of restoration activities is not necessarily equivalent to restoring ecosystem function. Monitoring systems are therefore being developed to assess whether degraded forests, wetlands, rivers, grasslands, coasts, marine environments, and other ecosystems are actually moving toward improved ecological condition.
Science, Monitoring, and Biodiversity Indicators
Scientific monitoring is essential because the goals of the Kunming-Montreal framework must ultimately be translated into measurable ecological outcomes.
The framework uses headline, component, and complementary indicators to evaluate progress. These cover issues such as protected-area coverage, restoration, invasive-species establishment, ecosystem integrity, biodiversity mainstreaming, species status, and financial flows.
Researchers have identified significant challenges in the monitoring system. These include gaps in indicator coverage, uneven data availability, inadequate national capacity, difficulties measuring genetic and phylogenetic diversity, and the need for indicators that reveal meaningful change at local and short-term scales.
Small Island Developing States and other countries with limited scientific and technical resources can face particular difficulty meeting extensive monitoring and reporting requirements.
Conservation science also warns against relying on a single measure of success. Protected-area coverage, for example, may need to be evaluated alongside ecological connectivity, species protection, Key Biodiversity Areas, ecosystem condition, genetic diversity, and management effectiveness.
Agriculture, Forests, Cities, Oceans, and Other Sectors
The Kunming-Montreal framework increasingly treats biodiversity as an issue that must be addressed throughout the economy rather than confined to protected areas.
Agriculture, forestry, fisheries, livestock production, and aquaculture are especially important because they both depend on biodiversity and can place substantial pressure on ecosystems. Food and agriculture therefore intersect with many of the framework's twenty-three targets.
Pollinator conservation links biodiversity policy directly with agricultural production and food security. Soil biodiversity, crop genetic diversity, ecosystem-based farming, sustainable fisheries, and forest management similarly illustrate the connections between biological diversity and productive landscapes.
Cities are another major area of implementation. Target 12 encourages urban governments to protect and expand green and blue spaces, restore ecosystems, strengthen ecological connectivity, integrate biodiversity into planning, and improve access to nature.
Marine conservation connects the CBD with regional sea agreements, marine protected areas, OECMs, fisheries policy, and the 30x30 agenda. International cooperation is also increasingly important because biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, health, food systems, and ocean governance interact across national borders and institutional boundaries.
Invasive alien species provide another example of this cross-cutting approach. Target 6 combines prevention, pathway management, control, eradication, scientific monitoring, and international cooperation in an effort to reduce new establishments and manage existing invasions.
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
The CBD system includes specialized international agreements addressing particular aspects of biodiversity governance.
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was adopted in 2000 and entered into force in 2003. It establishes international rules concerning the safe handling, transport, and use of living modified organisms where those organisms may create risks for biodiversity and human health.
The Biosafety Clearing-House provides an international information-exchange mechanism containing national laws, risk assessments, regulatory decisions, capacity-building information, and other records relating to living modified organisms.
The Protocol also allows Parties to consider certain socioeconomic consequences associated with the effects of living modified organisms on biodiversity.
A related agreement, the Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress, addresses response measures when living modified organisms cause or threaten damage to biodiversity.
Nagoya Protocol and Access and Benefit-Sharing
The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization develops the CBD's benefit-sharing objective.
It establishes a framework through which countries can regulate access to genetic resources and create arrangements for sharing benefits arising from their use. National focal points and competent national authorities provide information and administer national access and benefit-sharing requirements.
The Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House supports transparency by making information available concerning national measures, permits, internationally recognized certificates, focal points, and regulatory authorities.
These mechanisms are intended to provide greater legal certainty for both providers and users of genetic resources and to improve the ability of governments to monitor how genetic resources move through research and commercial value chains.
Together with newer arrangements concerning digital sequence information and the Cali Fund, the Nagoya Protocol illustrates the continuing evolution of international benefit-sharing policy as science and biotechnology change how biological resources are studied and commercialized.
National and Regional Implementation
Countries are translating the global framework into national policies in different ways.
The United Kingdom has updated its national biodiversity strategy to address all twenty-three Kunming-Montreal targets. Canada has developed a 2030 Nature Strategy and uses national indicators to track protected and conserved areas while also pursuing federal-provincial agreements and natural-capital accounting.
Japan's biodiversity strategy connects the international framework with a broader nature-positive transition and scientific programmes involving long-term biodiversity monitoring, environmental DNA, automated observation, and conservation indicators.
South Africa has connected its national conservation and restoration agenda with implementation of the CBD and has developed a new national biodiversity strategy intended to translate global objectives into measurable domestic action.
Lao PDR has explored the use of OECMs as an additional conservation pathway involving government, communities, and conservation organizations.
These examples demonstrate that the global framework does not prescribe a single national model. Instead, governments are expected to adapt common goals and targets to their ecological, economic, institutional, and social circumstances.
Conclusion
The Convention on Biological Diversity has developed from a broad environmental treaty into an extensive system of international biodiversity governance. Its agenda now encompasses conservation, restoration, protected areas, sustainable agriculture and fisheries, invasive species, urban biodiversity, genetic resources, Indigenous knowledge, corporate responsibility, financial reform, scientific monitoring, biosafety, and access and benefit-sharing.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework represents the most ambitious attempt yet to organize these issues around a common set of global goals. Its twenty-three targets link traditional conservation measures such as protected areas and species recovery with economic policy, finance, pollution, planning, production systems, knowledge, participation, and social equity.
The principal challenge is now implementation. Scientific assessments and international reviews indicate that formal commitments alone will not be sufficient. Protected areas must actually conserve biodiversity, restoration must produce ecological recovery, financing must reach the required scale, national strategies must translate global promises into practical action, and monitoring systems must be capable of showing whether biodiversity is genuinely recovering.
The future effectiveness of the CBD will therefore depend less on the creation of additional headline commitments than on whether governments, institutions, businesses, communities, Indigenous peoples, scientists, and civil society can convert existing agreements into measurable improvements in ecosystems, species, genetic diversity, and the relationship between human societies and the natural world.
- TOC**
Foundations and Treaty Architecture
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-08-12
Overview of the Convention on Biological Diversity, its current work, and the institutional framework through which Parties coordinate global biodiversity policy. Useful as a starting point for understanding the treaty’s continuing role in conservation, sustainable use, and benefit-sharing.
Australian government overview of the CBD as a legally binding international treaty and one of the major agreements emerging from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It also describes national obligations and reporting under the Convention.
| United Nations Treaty Collection | United Nations | 2026
Official treaty-status page for the Convention on Biological Diversity, including its 1992 adoption, 1993 entry into force, signatories, Parties, and ratification records. This is a useful primary source for the treaty’s legal status and membership.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2020-09-18
Archive of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the twenty global targets that guided CBD implementation from 2011 to 2020. The page helps trace the evolution from the earlier Strategic Plan to the present Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Conference of the Parties | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2010
Primary decision adopting the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. The decision is important for comparing the structure, ambition, and implementation mechanisms of the Aichi era with the newer global framework.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
History of the CBD from the negotiations that produced the agreed text in Nairobi through its opening for signature at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and entry into force in 1993. It explains the treaty’s origins in the international sustainable-development movement.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
The CBD’s main portal brings together work on protected areas, invasive species, genetic resources, biodiversity finance, ecosystem restoration, traditional knowledge, monitoring, climate links, and other cross-cutting issues under the Convention.
| IUCN | International Union for Conservation of Nature | n.d.
IUCN’s CBD resource hub compiles position papers, technical recommendations, and explanatory material related to the Convention and its Conferences of the Parties. It is useful for seeing how a major conservation-science network engages with CBD negotiations.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | n.d.
FAO explains the CBD’s three objectives and how food, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and genetic resources intersect with Convention implementation. The page highlights the importance of agrifood systems to more than half of the current global biodiversity targets.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Overview of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity and the five strategic goals that organized the Aichi Targets. It provides historical context for the CBD’s earlier attempt to mainstream biodiversity and slow global biodiversity loss.
From the Aichi Targets to the Kunming-Montreal Framework
Government overview of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and its replacement of the 2011–2020 Strategic Plan. It summarizes the framework’s goals, targets, and role in the current international biodiversity agenda.
| Alice C. Hughes and R. Edward Grumbine | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2023-11-06
Critical academic assessment of what the Kunming-Montreal framework does well, where its targets and indicators remain weak, and how implementation and future biodiversity agreements could be strengthened.
| International Legal Materials | Cambridge University Press | 2023
Legal presentation of the Kunming-Montreal framework, including its treatment of Indigenous rights, traditional knowledge, participation, diverse value systems, conservation, sustainable use, and benefit-sharing.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2022-12-27
Official CBD presentation of the final Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It contains the four 2050 goals and twenty-three 2030 targets covering conservation, restoration, sustainable use, finance, benefit-sharing, pollution, business, and governance.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2022-12-21
FAO account of COP15’s adoption of the Kunming-Montreal framework, with particular attention to the global deal’s implications for food systems, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, restoration, and sustainable use.
Comprehensive account of COP15 in Montreal, where Parties adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The analysis emphasizes compromise, implementation challenges, and the need for transformational change to reverse biodiversity loss.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2022-12-19
Official announcement of the COP15 agreement, including the 30x30 conservation goal, subsidy reform, restoration, finance, and the broader package of measures intended to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
| Convention on Biological Diversity | UN Environment Programme | 2022-12-19
UNEP overview of the new global biodiversity framework and its four long-term goals and twenty-three targets. It emphasizes the urgency of moving rapidly from agreement to implementation across governments, industries, and society.
Detailed summary of the Geneva biodiversity negotiations that helped prepare the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. It captures the difficult technical and political negotiations that preceded adoption of the final agreement at COP15.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | n.d.
Explains how agrifood sectors connect directly or indirectly to the entire Kunming-Montreal framework. Target 10 and other targets make agricultural biodiversity, sustainable production, soil health, pollination, fisheries, and forestry central to implementation.
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Targets
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 1 focuses on biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning and management of land and sea use, with the aim of bringing loss of high-biodiversity and high-integrity areas close to zero while respecting Indigenous peoples and local communities.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 2 calls for at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine ecosystems to be under effective restoration by 2030.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 3 establishes the well-known 30x30 commitment while emphasizing effective management, ecological representation, connectivity, equitable governance, and recognition of Indigenous and traditional territories.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 4 addresses species recovery, extinction risk, genetic diversity, and human-wildlife coexistence rather than treating protected-area expansion as sufficient by itself.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 6 addresses invasive alien species by managing introduction pathways, preventing establishment, reducing introduction rates, and controlling or eradicating invasive species in priority locations.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 7 addresses nutrient pollution, pesticides, hazardous chemicals, and plastics, linking biodiversity policy directly with pollution prevention and chemical management.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 10 calls for biodiversity-friendly management of agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry and connects conservation goals with the production systems on which people depend.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 12 focuses on urban biodiversity, green and blue spaces, ecological connectivity, access to nature, and biodiversity-inclusive urban planning.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 14 calls for biodiversity values to be integrated into policies, development planning, environmental assessments, national accounting, fiscal policy, and decision-making throughout government and the economy.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 15 addresses business and financial institutions, including assessment and disclosure of biodiversity risks, dependencies, and impacts across operations, value chains, and portfolios.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 18 calls for harmful incentives and subsidies to be identified, reformed, phased out, or eliminated while scaling up incentives that support conservation and sustainable use.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 19 establishes ambitious biodiversity-finance goals, including mobilizing at least $200 billion per year by 2030 from public, private, domestic, and international sources.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 21 focuses on making biodiversity data, information, and knowledge accessible to decision-makers and the public while recognizing traditional knowledge and appropriate safeguards.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 22 centers participation, access to justice and information, and protection of environmental human-rights defenders, with particular attention to Indigenous peoples and local communities.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Target 23 requires a gender-responsive approach to implementation and recognizes women’s and girls’ rights, participation, leadership, and access to land and natural resources.
National Implementation, Reporting, and Monitoring
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-07-27
Explains the global review process that will assess collective progress toward the Kunming-Montreal targets. The review draws on national reporting, scientific evidence, and an expert-supported global report.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-06-12
Introduces the first draft global report on collective progress under the framework. The draft finds unprecedented engagement but concludes that the scale and speed of implementation remain insufficient for meeting the 2030 targets.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-05-25
Overview of the implementation architecture supporting the framework, including national targets, NBSAPs, national reports, monitoring indicators, technical cooperation, capacity-building, finance, and global review.
Australia’s seventh national report is an example of the new reporting cycle under the Kunming-Montreal framework, assessing national progress against all four goals and twenty-three targets.
| Biodiversity Indicators Partnership / UNEP-WCMC | GBF Indicator Repository | 2026
Repository of component and complementary indicators used to monitor the Kunming-Montreal framework. It illustrates the scale of the data challenge involved in translating global targets into measurable national and global progress.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025-03-25
Describes the COP15 and COP16 expectations for countries to revise or update NBSAPs, communicate national targets, use agreed indicators, and mainstream biodiversity into wider development and sectoral policies.
| Justine Bell-James and James E. M. Watson | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025-02-17
Finds that national biodiversity plans do not yet match the ambition of international protection and restoration commitments, highlighting the implementation gap between global promises and domestic targets.
| Flavio Affinito et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2024-10-09
Reviews development of the Global Biodiversity Framework monitoring system and argues that transparency, data availability, indicator quality, and adequate resourcing will determine whether the framework can track real-world progress.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2024-08-20
Tracks countries submitting national biodiversity targets and updated National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans aligned with the Kunming-Montreal framework in the run-up to COP16.
| UNEP | UN Environment Programme | 2024
Describes UNEP support for dozens of countries updating biodiversity strategies and targets, the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, and progress toward the 30x30 target.
COP16 in Cali and the Implementation Agenda
| John Cannon | Mongabay | 2024-11-08
Reviews the ocean-related outcomes of COP16, including work on ecologically or biologically significant marine areas, marine protected areas, ocean financing, and the broader 30x30 agenda.
| Aimee Gabay | Mongabay | 2024-11-06
Examines COP16 outcomes from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and local communities, including the Article 8(j) subsidiary body, the Cali Fund, recognition advances, and unresolved funding concerns.
| Grethel Aguilar | IUCN | 2024-11-03
IUCN’s post-COP16 assessment highlights the record participation in Cali, advances on inclusion and implementation, and the continuing need to convert political commitments into effective conservation outcomes.
| Patrick Greenfield | The Guardian | 2024-11-03
Reports on COP16 ending without resolution of several major finance and monitoring questions while still achieving breakthroughs involving genetic information and Indigenous participation.
| World Resources Institute | WRI | 2024-11-02
WRI’s assessment of COP16 notes breakthroughs on digital sequence information and Indigenous participation but stresses that finance and monitoring remained unresolved when the meeting was suspended.
| Grethel Aguilar | IUCN | 2024-10-30
Calls for ambitious national targets, strong monitoring, scientific evidence, whole-of-society engagement, and faster implementation of the global biodiversity commitments.
| Gloria Dickie | Reuters | 2024-10-28
Reports on the financing gridlock at COP16 and the gap between existing conservation funding and the resources considered necessary to implement the 2022 biodiversity agreement.
| UNEP | UN Environment Programme | 2024
UNEP overview of COP16 in Cali, the first Biodiversity COP after adoption of the Kunming-Montreal framework and a key test of national implementation, monitoring, finance, and benefit-sharing.
| Global Environment Facility | GEF | 2024
GEF’s COP16 hub highlights biodiversity finance, the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, Indigenous-led action, the Nagoya and Cartagena Protocols, and country-level implementation.
| Carbon Brief | Carbon Brief | 2024
Detailed issue-by-issue analysis of COP16 covering national plans, finance, digital sequence information, Indigenous participation, monitoring, biodiversity and health, marine policy, synthetic biology, and climate links.
Biodiversity Finance, Subsidies, and Economic Reform
| GEF Secretariat | GEF | 2026-05-31
Concise statistical overview of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, including its launch, programming, and role in supporting countries pursuing the CBD’s 2030 biodiversity targets.
| Global Environment Facility | GEF | 2026
Overview of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, created to help developing countries implement the Kunming-Montreal goals through national planning, policy, governance, finance, and biodiversity action.
| Carlos Manuel Rodríguez | GEF | 2025-02-27
Welcomes decisions reached when COP16 resumed in Rome and describes GEF and GBFF financing programmed for implementation of the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| UNEP | UN Environment Programme | 2025
UNEP overview of nature finance and the need to align public and private capital flows with biodiversity-positive outcomes, the Kunming-Montreal framework, and sustainable development.
| Global Environment Facility | GEF | 2024-10-28
Reports new government pledges to the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund announced at COP16 and illustrates the continuing effort to mobilize dedicated financing for implementation.
| Global Biodiversity Framework Fund donors | GEF | 2024-10-28
Joint donor statement on new and continuing contributions to the GBFF, showing how the fund is being built as one part of the broader biodiversity-finance architecture.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2024-06-11
CBD resource-mobilization page explaining Target 19’s goals for increasing biodiversity finance from domestic, international, public, private, and innovative sources.
| Inger Andersen | UN Environment Programme | 2023-05-12
Explains the scale of the biodiversity-finance gap and the importance of domestic expenditure reviews, policy reform, financial-needs assessments, and international support for implementing the global framework.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Detailed presentation of Target 19, including blended finance, private investment, payments for ecosystem services, green bonds, biodiversity credits, benefit-sharing mechanisms, and the role of Indigenous and community action.
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | n.d.
OECD biodiversity policy hub covering incentives, finance, investment, economic instruments, and government policy reforms needed to halt biodiversity loss and align with the Kunming-Montreal framework.
Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Knowledge, and Benefit-Sharing
| Ann-Kathrin Neureuther | UN Environment Programme | 2026-04-16
Explains digital sequence information, why genetic-data use raises benefit-sharing questions, and how the Cali Fund is intended to channel benefits toward biodiversity-rich countries and Indigenous and local communities.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025-07-04
Guide to the Cali Fund, the financial arm of the multilateral mechanism for sharing benefits arising from commercial use of digital sequence information on genetic resources.
| BioScience authors | BioScience | 2025
Proposes a method for tracking non-monetary benefits from access and benefit-sharing agreements, addressing a difficult measurement challenge under the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| World Resources Institute and partners | WRI | 2024-10-30
Describes a COP16 initiative for a locally led Amazon bioeconomy intended to conserve forests and rivers while supporting community livelihoods and Indigenous participation.
| World Resources Institute | WRI | 2024-10-24
COP16 event examining how satellite data, deep learning, ecological connectivity, and traditional knowledge can be combined to reduce deforestation, road expansion, and habitat fragmentation.
| Nature Ecology & Evolution editors | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2024
Year-end review noting COP16’s creation of a permanent subsidiary body for Indigenous peoples and local communities and progress on digital genetic information, alongside unresolved monitoring and finance issues.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2023
Explains Target 23 and the CBD Gender Plan of Action, emphasizing women’s and girls’ rights, leadership, participation, access to resources, and equal opportunity in biodiversity governance.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
The framework’s implementation principles recognize Indigenous peoples and local communities as custodians of biodiversity and require respect for rights, traditional knowledge, participation, free prior and informed consent, and diverse value systems.
| UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office | UNDP | n.d.
Official fund page for the Cali Fund, including its objectives, governance, financing, and intention to support eligible CBD Parties as well as Indigenous peoples and local communities.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
CBD portal on traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices under Article 8(j), a central part of the Convention’s work on Indigenous peoples and local communities.
30x30, Restoration, and Area-Based Conservation
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-03-27
CBD restoration hub explains the ecological and social rationale for Target 2 and the goal of placing at least 30 percent of degraded ecosystems under effective restoration by 2030.
| Jonas Geldmann et al. | Conservation Biology | 2026-03-09
Argues that the world could nominally protect 30 percent of the planet and still fail to conserve biodiversity if protected areas are poorly located or ineffectively managed.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-02-13
Describes the Target 2 Road Map, a global partnership designed to improve restoration methodologies, monitoring, coordination, and national capacity under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-07-03
Describes pilot efforts intended to help countries measure and report restoration under Target 2 across forests, wetlands, rivers, coasts, oceans, and other ecosystems.
| Inger Andersen | UN Environment Programme | 2024-10-28
Uses the Protected Planet Report to assess progress toward Target 3 and stresses that both coverage and conservation quality must improve rapidly to meet the 2030 goal.
| Frontiers authors | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2024
Reviews the emerging contribution of other effective area-based conservation measures, or OECMs, toward Target 3 and the need for equitable, effective, biodiversity-relevant governance.
| Nature Ecology & Evolution authors | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2024
Explains how the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems can support implementation and monitoring across numerous Kunming-Montreal targets by linking ecosystem integrity, risk, restoration, and conservation planning.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | n.d.
FAO overview of the global restoration target and the monitoring challenge involved in determining whether degraded ecosystems are actually under effective restoration.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | n.d.
Explains FAO’s role as custodian of the headline restoration indicator and the collaborative road map for coordinating methods and national reporting toward the 30 percent restoration goal.
| FAO, CBD, and Society for Ecological Restoration | FAO | n.d.
Resource guide for countries implementing Target 2, with emphasis on delivering measurable biodiversity and human-well-being outcomes rather than merely counting restoration activities.
Science, Indicators, and Critical Assessment
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-07-13
Training and awareness materials for implementing Target 6, including data standards, introduction pathways, priority sites, climate interactions, e-commerce, tourism, and socioeconomic impacts.
| Frontiers authors | Frontiers in Science | 2026
Assesses the concept of a nature-positive future and the extent to which the Kunming-Montreal targets are sufficient for stabilizing ecological systems and reversing biodiversity loss.
| A. Jarvis et al. | Conservation Science and Practice | 2026
Examines the difficulties Small Island Developing States face in meeting the monitoring requirements of the global biodiversity framework, including data, capacity, and reporting constraints.
| Flavio Affinito et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025-06-10
Systematic assessment of the framework’s monitoring indicators, identifying gaps in coverage and recommending improvements so the indicator system better captures the full ambition of the global goals and targets.
| ScienceDirect authors | Ecological Indicators | 2025
Case study of selecting practical biodiversity indicators for Quebec’s 2030 Nature Plan, demonstrating how global framework indicators can be filtered and adapted for subnational decision-making.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2024-12-10
Explains the headline indicator for Target 6: the rate at which invasive alien species become established. It illustrates how the framework translates a broad ecological goal into a measurable reporting variable.
| Biodiversity Indicators Partnership | GBF Indicator Repository | 2024-09-01
Metadata for an indicator tracking whether countries integrate biodiversity and its values into policies, planning, development processes, accounting, and financial flows under Target 14.
| R. Venegas-Li et al. | Conservation Letters | 2024-06-19
Presents a methodology for identifying Critical Ecosystem Areas using ecosystem type, integrity, collapse risk, protection, and representation to help countries implement the framework more strategically.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2024
Breaks Target 6 into pathways, prevention, establishment, eradication, and control, helping countries operationalize the commitment to cut invasive alien species introduction rates.
| Conservation Science and Practice authors | Conservation Science and Practice | 2023
Examines how genetic and phylogenetic diversity are represented in the Kunming-Montreal framework, especially Goal A and Target 4, and discusses important gaps in conserving evolutionary diversity.
Sectoral and Cross-Cutting Implementation
| Landscape and Urban Planning authors | Landscape and Urban Planning | 2026
Global review of urban bird conservation under Target 12 finds important gaps between ecological research and urban planning, especially regarding equitable access, participatory design, and human well-being.
| Jun Yang, Junxiang Li, and Fanhua Kong | Biodiversity Science | 2025-06-23
Reviews urban biodiversity research in China through the lens of Target 12, connecting ecological science with planning, green and blue spaces, connectivity, human well-being, and urban conservation.
| Liz Willetts et al. | Conservation International / The Lancet | 2024-11-29
Explains the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health adopted at COP16, linking biodiversity policy with infectious disease, non-communicable disease, mental health, food and water security, and interministerial cooperation.
| Patrick Greenfield and Phoebe Weston | The Guardian | 2024-11-04
Examines the growing policy emphasis on treating climate change and biodiversity loss as interconnected crises, a theme increasingly important to implementing the CBD framework alongside climate commitments.
| World Resources Institute | WRI | 2024-10-27
Explores how cities can implement Target 12 through greener urban planning, ecosystem restoration, connectivity, and more equitable access to nature in rapidly urbanizing regions.
Protocols, Biosafety, and Access and Benefit-Sharing
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2026-08-28
The Biosafety Clearing-House is the information-exchange mechanism of the Cartagena Protocol. It provides access to national laws, risk assessments, decisions, capacity-building information and records concerning living modified organisms.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-08-24
Current portal for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, covering the international rules for safe handling, transport and use of living modified organisms and the Protocol’s ongoing meetings, decisions and capacity-building work.
| United Nations Treaty Collection | United Nations | 2026-08-21
Official treaty-status page for the Nagoya Protocol, listing entry into force, signatories, Parties, ratifications and depositary information.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-08-17
Current portal for the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing, the CBD agreement intended to ensure fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the utilization of genetic resources.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2026
Overview of the Cartagena Protocol, including its adoption in 2000, entry into force in 2003 and the role it plays in reducing potential risks from living modified organisms to biodiversity and human health.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2026
Preparatory overview for Cartagena Protocol COP-MOP 12, covering risk assessment, compliance, national biosafety legislation, biotechnology developments and other implementation issues.
| CBD Secretariat | Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House | 2026
The ABS Clearing-House provides national measures, permits, certificates, focal points and other records that help users and providers of genetic resources understand Nagoya Protocol requirements.
| CBD Secretariat | Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House | 2026
Explains how the ABS Clearing-House improves legal certainty and transparency and supports monitoring of genetic-resource use along value chains.
| Xiaoou Zheng | Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law | 2025-07-14
Examines what compliance means under the CBD and its protocols, comparing institutional design and showing how different treaty mechanisms address implementation, reporting and non-compliance.
| UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office | GOV.UK | 2025-03-13
UK treaty publication for the Nagoya Protocol, providing the formal legal text and parliamentary record for the agreement on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing.
| UK Government | GOV.UK | 2025-02-12
Practical regulatory guidance for researchers and companies using genetic resources, explaining compliance and due-diligence obligations connected with the Nagoya Protocol.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2025
Historical overview of how Parties have developed and tested voluntary guidance for assessing socio-economic considerations under the Cartagena Protocol.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2025
Overview of the Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress, which establishes international rules on response measures when living modified organisms cause or threaten biodiversity damage.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | 2018
Full text of the Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol, including provisions on scope, causation, response measures, liability, financial security and implementation.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2011-01-28
Official Nagoya Protocol Article 14 establishing the Access and Benefit-Sharing Clearing-House and defining the information Parties are expected to make available.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2011-01-28
Official Nagoya Protocol provisions on national focal points and competent national authorities responsible for providing information and administering access and benefit-sharing procedures.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2006-11-02
Official text of Article 26 of the Cartagena Protocol, which allows Parties to take into account certain socio-economic considerations arising from the impacts of living modified organisms on biodiversity.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | n.d.
Guidance for assessing potential adverse effects of living modified organisms on biodiversity, including uncertainty, comparators, receiving environments and stepwise risk-assessment procedures.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | n.d.
Compilation of COP-MOP decisions on socio-economic considerations under Article 26 of the Cartagena Protocol, showing how Parties may consider biodiversity-related social and economic impacts when making biosafety decisions.
| CBD Secretariat | Biosafety Clearing-House | n.d.
Collection of technical documents, expert-group reports and guidance concerning socio-economic considerations in decision-making on living modified organisms.
Implementation, Institutions, and Treaty Governance
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-08-13
Account of the 2026 Nairobi meetings where Parties acknowledged that the world remains off track on biodiversity targets while advancing recommendations for COP17.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-08-03
Reports scientific and technical progress ahead of COP17 on protected areas, synthetic biology, marine conservation, sustainable wildlife management and other issues under the CBD.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-06-18
Overview of Communication, Education and Public Awareness under Article 13 of the CBD and the role of public understanding, education and knowledge-sharing in implementing the global framework.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-06-16
CBD programme on dry and sub-humid lands, linking biodiversity conservation with livelihoods, poverty alleviation, food production and resilience in arid and semi-arid regions.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-02-20
Summary of SBI-6 negotiations on finance, gender, capacity-building, cooperation and benefit-sharing ahead of COP17, illustrating the institutional work needed to turn the global framework into implementation.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2026-01-23
Describes the network of technical and scientific cooperation support centres created to help countries obtain expertise, tools and capacity for implementing the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Astrid Schomaker | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025-12-22
CBD Executive Secretary’s review of 2025, including the resumed COP16 session, resource mobilization, monitoring and reporting arrangements, and preparations for the first global review at COP17.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025-12-10
CBD thematic programme on mountain biodiversity, emphasizing the ecological importance of mountain ecosystems, freshwater provision and the distinctive pressures affecting high-elevation species and communities.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025
Notification archive showing how the Secretariat coordinates NBSAP peer review, regional dialogues, monitoring workshops and technical support for implementation.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2018
Explains formal mandates for cooperation between the CBD and other biodiversity-related conventions, including CITES, CMS, Ramsar, the World Heritage Convention and the plant genetic resources treaty.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2011
Portal for the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, the CBD initiative aimed at slowing and ultimately halting the loss of plant diversity.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2007-09-04
Programme of work for drylands biodiversity, combining assessments of status and trends with targeted action on identified conservation and sustainable-use needs.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2007-05-30
Explains the importance of dryland biodiversity for billions of people, crop and livestock origins, migratory species, ecosystem services and livelihoods.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2007-05-30
Explains application of the CBD ecosystem approach to forests, emphasizing integrated management, adaptive governance, equitable benefit-sharing and maintaining ecosystem structure and function.
| CBD Secretariat | Convention on Biological Diversity | n.d.
Programme of Work on Protected Areas, covering protected-area planning, governance, participation, enabling conditions, standards, assessment and monitoring.
National and Regional Implementation Examples
| Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment | South African Government | 2026-08-09
Announcement of South Africa’s draft 2026–2035 NBSAP, described as the principal national instrument for implementing the CBD and translating the global framework into measurable domestic actions.
| National Institute for Environmental Studies | NIES Japan | 2026-04-01
Describes Japanese biodiversity research priorities including long-term monitoring, environmental DNA, automated observation, indicators and science support for 30x30 and nature-positive policies.
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | 2026-03-20
Updated Canadian overview of the national biodiversity strategy and how the country intends to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in line with its CBD commitments.
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | 2026
Tracks Canadian terrestrial and marine protected and conserved areas and explicitly links national indicators to Target 3 and the 30x30 commitment.
| Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada | Government of Canada | 2025-11
Examines natural-capital accounting as a tool for Canada’s biodiversity strategy and for integrating the value of nature into economic and policy decisions.
| IUCN | International Union for Conservation of Nature | 2025-08-13
Reports Lao PDR’s first national dialogue on OECMs and how community, government and conservation actors are exploring additional pathways for meeting Target 3 and 30x30.
| South African Government | South African Government | 2025-05-22
South Africa’s biodiversity-day statement connects domestic conservation and restoration with the CBD, COP16 outcomes and the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | 2025-03-10
Reports a federal-provincial conservation agreement supporting protected areas, species recovery, invasive-species control and Indigenous leadership under the global biodiversity framework.
| UK Government | GOV.UK | 2025-02-26
The United Kingdom’s updated NBSAP commits the four UK nations to implementing all 23 Kunming-Montreal targets and illustrates how global commitments are translated into domestic policy.
| UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs | GOV.UK | 2025-02-26
Announcement accompanying the UK NBSAP, highlighting national commitments on protected areas, restoration, species, pollution, finance and the wider global biodiversity framework.
| UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs | GOV.UK | 2025
Explains how Defra’s strengthened biodiversity duty and related domestic policies are intended to support delivery of the CBD and the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Government of Canada and Government of Quebec | Government of Canada | 2025
Text of the Canada-Quebec Nature Agreement supporting Quebec’s 2030 Nature Plan and provincial implementation of the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | 2024-06
Announcement of Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy and proposed accountability approach, emphasizing Indigenous rights, science, integrated planning and whole-of-society implementation.
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Government of Canada | 2024
Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy sets out the country’s roadmap for implementing the Kunming-Montreal framework through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.
| Ministry of the Environment, Japan | Government of Japan | 2023
Japan’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2023–2030 translates the Kunming-Montreal framework into five national strategic priorities centered on a nature-positive transition.
Conservation Science, Monitoring, and 30x30
| Jianqiao Zhao | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026-01-06
Discusses conservation prioritization that includes intraspecific genetic variation, cautioning that conventional richness or intactness metrics may miss important dimensions of biodiversity when planning for 30x30.
| Guangdong Li et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026
Projects future land-use pressures and habitat-conversion risks inside terrestrial protected areas, reinforcing the importance of management effectiveness rather than coverage alone.
| Graeme S. Cumming | Nature | 2025-12-10
Examines spillover effects of protected-area management on surrounding vegetation, contributing evidence about how protected areas can influence landscapes beyond formal boundaries.
| Brajesh K. Singh et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-11-25
Argues that soil biodiversity has been neglected in conservation policy and highlights new opportunities created by its recognition within the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| Josh A. Firth et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-11-13
Warns that ecological connectivity can carry costs as well as benefits and argues that those trade-offs should be incorporated into conservation planning under the global framework.
| Jessica Currie et al. | Conservation Science and Practice | 2025-06-23
Evaluates Canada’s progress toward 30x30 using protected-area coverage together with connectivity, species protection and Key Biodiversity Area metrics.
| Barbara Horta e Costa, Fabrice Stephenson and Joachim Claudet | Nature | 2025-06-03
Argues that marine 30x30 policy should emphasize strict and effective protection rather than nominal designation of areas that still permit damaging activities.
| Nature Reviews Biodiversity editors | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-05-20
Editorial on the challenge of translating ecological and evolutionary research into policy-relevant tools and data for implementation of the global biodiversity framework.
| James A. Fitzsimons, Carolina Hazin and Joanna L. Smith | npj Biodiversity | 2025-03-18
Clarifies common misconceptions about OECMs and explains why accurate identification and governance matter if these sites are to make a genuine contribution to global 30x30 commitments.
| Communications Earth & Environment authors | Communications Earth & Environment | 2025
Models conservation corridors in China and shows how combining connectivity with biodiversity prioritization can improve protected-area networks under the global framework.
| Biological Conservation authors | Biological Conservation | 2025
Offers recommendations for improving biodiversity indicators at local and short-term scales so countries can detect meaningful change before the 2030 deadline.
| Eco-Environment & Health authors | Eco-Environment & Health | 2025
Recommends that countries faithfully translate the ambition and essential elements of the global framework into national biodiversity targets and policy instruments.
| Global Ecology and Conservation authors | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2025
Reviews opportunities and obstacles for international cooperation under the Kunming-Montreal framework, including finance, technology transfer and divergent national interests.
| Ye et al. | Earth's Future | 2025
Develops conservation priorities for biodiversity, carbon and water on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, illustrating how global targets can be adapted to regional ecological trade-offs.
| Biological Conservation authors | Biological Conservation | 2025
Finds that targeted species-specific conservation measures can outperform broad, non-targeted measures when the goal is to reverse declines of threatened species.
Biodiversity Finance, Incentives, and Business
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | 2026
OECD hub on mobilizing and aligning public and private biodiversity finance, reforming harmful incentives and tracking progress toward the framework’s finance targets.
| OECD | OECD Publishing | 2026
Reviews the current biodiversity-finance landscape and the policy context created by the Kunming-Montreal framework, including resource mobilization and alignment of financial flows.
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme | 2026
Overview of UNDP support for NBSAP implementation, national biodiversity finance plans, reporting, capacity-building and the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership.
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme | 2026
Explains how nature-related financial disclosure can help companies and financial institutions identify dependencies, impacts and risks and support the global goal of halting nature loss.
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme | 2025-11-04
Reports that BIOFIN-supported governments have mobilized billions for nature and are integrating biodiversity more directly into fiscal planning and finance strategies.
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme | 2025-10-20
Describes a GEF-funded programme providing financial and technical assistance to 139 countries for NBSAP updates and seventh national reports under the CBD.
| OECD | OECD Publishing | 2025-09-10
Major OECD report on implementing Target 18 through biodiversity-positive incentives and reform of policies and subsidies that contribute to nature loss.
| OECD | OECD Publishing | 2025-09-10
Examines biodiversity credits as one potential market-based incentive, including their opportunities, integrity risks, governance requirements and relationship to Target 18.
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | 2025-09-10
OECD discussion of how economic incentives can be redesigned to support biodiversity-positive behavior and help countries implement the 2030 mission.
| OECD | OECD Publishing | 2025-09-10
Assesses tradable-permit systems as biodiversity-positive incentives and considers how carefully designed market mechanisms might support Target 18.
| UNDP South Africa | United Nations Development Programme | 2025-08-28
Case study of training South African financial institutions to incorporate nature-related risks and TNFD approaches into mainstream financial decision-making.
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | 2025-05-16
Workshop on mobilizing biodiversity finance through public policy, private capital, payments for ecosystem services, bonds, offsets, disclosure and enabling financial regulation.
| UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office | UNDP | 2025-02-25
Announcement of the Cali Fund launch, designed to receive contributions from companies using digital sequence information and channel benefits toward biodiversity implementation.
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme | 2025
Speech arguing for integrated climate, biodiversity and development finance rather than treating the Paris Agreement and CBD implementation as separate funding agendas.
| Resources, Conservation and Recycling authors | Resources, Conservation and Recycling | 2025
Finds that many ESG assessment systems still underrepresent biodiversity and argues that the goals and targets of the global framework should be more fully integrated into environmental ratings.
Agrifood Systems, Forests, Pollinators, and Mainstreaming
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2026-05-21
FAO analysis finds that all reviewed NBSAPs include agrifood-related targets or actions, showing how central food production and land management are to national biodiversity commitments.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-08-07
Highlights resources on aquaculture, marine-fishery biodiversity outcomes, inland fisheries, ecosystem-based farming and wetland restoration.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-07-16
FAO update covering marine fisheries, biodiversity and climate mapping, microorganisms, fungi and ecosystem-service resources relevant to implementation.
| CBD Secretariat and FAO | Convention on Biological Diversity | 2025-07-02
Updated presentation of the International Pollinators Initiative plan of action, linking pollinator conservation with agriculture, food security, habitat management, research and climate resilience.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-06-06
Update featuring resources on freshwater restoration, agricultural mainstreaming, pesticide evaluation, aquaculture genetics and other areas tied to global biodiversity targets.
| FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture | FAO | 2025-06-02
Describes draft voluntary guidelines intended to align implementation of biodiversity-for-food-and-agriculture policies with the Kunming-Montreal framework.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-04-15
Highlights the FAO Biodiversity Knowledge Hub as a repository of tools, reports and training resources that countries can use to implement biodiversity commitments in agrifood systems.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-03-05
FAO explains how crop production, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture intersect with all 23 global biodiversity targets and why agrifood actors are indispensable to implementation.
| Jia Li, Sophie Roehrl and Sheila Wertz-Kanounnikof | FAO | 2025
Review of biodiversity and food-system policy integration across Asia and the Pacific, finding that national strategies often recognize biodiversity but still lack sufficiently concrete implementation measures.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2024
Programme supporting biodiversity mainstreaming in agricultural policy and practice in Lao PDR, Madagascar and Uganda, with Target 10 as an important entry point.
Marine, Invasive Species, Health, and Other Convention Synergies
| IUCN | International Union for Conservation of Nature | 2026-06-30
Describes continuing IUCN-CBD cooperation on invasive alien species and preparations to scale action under Target 6 ahead of COP17.
| IUCN | International Union for Conservation of Nature | 2026
IUCN hub on invasive alien species, including a toolkit developed with the CBD to help countries implement the prevention, pathway-management, control and eradication elements of Target 6.
| UNEP Caribbean Environment Programme | UN Environment Programme | 2026
Explains how Regional Seas agreements are incorporating Target 3, marine protected areas, OECMs and monitoring into regional ocean governance.
| UNESCO | UNESCO | 2025-11-05
Reports how UNESCO biosphere reserves can help countries implement numerous Kunming-Montreal targets by integrating conservation, sustainable use, science and local participation.
| World Health Organization | WHO | 2025-10-22
Explores Indigenous-led approaches connecting biodiversity, traditional knowledge, territory and health and links the discussion with the CBD’s strengthened Article 8(j) governance.
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | 2025-10-13
Tanzanian case study on mainstreaming biodiversity into fisheries management while aligning conservation commitments with food security and small-scale fishing livelihoods.
| UNESCO World Heritage Centre | UNESCO | 2025-10-01
Describes the Bern Process and efforts to improve cooperation among biodiversity-related multilateral environmental agreements during implementation of the global framework.
| UNESCO | UNESCO | 2025-07-23
Project integrating Indigenous and local knowledge into biodiversity assessment and national policy in Malawi, Namibia, and Trinidad and Tobago, with links to Targets 9, 21 and 22.
| UNESCO World Heritage Centre | UNESCO | 2025-02-24
Summarizes expert recommendations for using the World Heritage Convention to support implementation of the global biodiversity framework across natural and cultural heritage sites.
| UNEP / IPBES | UN Environment Programme | 2023
Overview of the IPBES invasive alien species assessment and its relevance to Target 6, covering impacts, introduction pathways, drivers, management and policy responses.
