Note: As governments gather in Yerevan, Armenia, this week for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) is calling on governments to put the rights and leadership of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities at the center of global biodiversity action. RRI is urging governments to strengthen community land and resource rights, increase direct financing, and support community-led conservation. Through its #StopTheRollbacks campaign, the RRI coalition is also advocating for the protection of existing rights commitments during negotiations. Following is a press release from RRI.
Washington, D.C. October 20, 2026 — As governments gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17), the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) coalition are calling for greater recognition and protection of the rights and leadership of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities in global biodiversity action.
The summit marks the first collective review of progress toward implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022. As countries assess their progress, the RRI coalition is urging governments to move beyond promises and take concrete steps to secure community land and resource rights, strengthen community-led conservation, and ensure that communities have a meaningful role in decision-making and access to direct financing.
At CBD COP17, RRI is advancing five essential interconnected priorities to achieving global biodiversity goals. These include strengthening community participation and decision-making power, recognizing community-led conservation, expanding equitable and direct financing, advancing gender justice, and protecting existing rights commitments while pushing for greater ambition.
“CBD COP17 is a critical test of whether governments are prepared to turn their biodiversity promises into meaningful action,” said Solange Bandiaky-Badji, president and coordinator of RRI. “Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities have protected their territories and ecosystems for generations, yet they continue to face barriers to securing their rights and accessing the resources they need. Governments must recognize their leadership in conservation efforts and ensure that global biodiversity commitments translate into real change on the ground.”
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework includes a commitment to conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s land and waters by 2030. The RRI coalition is calling on governments to ensure that efforts to achieve this target recognize Indigenous and Traditional Territories, respect community governance systems, and strengthen collective land and resource rights.
“States have an obligation to uphold international human rights obligations, including those agreed to in the context of the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework,” said Alain Frechette, RRI’s program director of Rights, Climate, and Conservation. “The prospect of diminished requirements to safeguard and prioritize the rights and contributions of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities in the voluntary guidelines for Targets 2 and 3 would put both communities and biodiversity at risk. CBD COP17 must reinforce, rather than undermine, the rights-based ambition of the KM-GBF.”
Beyond recognizing community rights, RRI is calling for changes in how biodiversity financing is distributed. The coalition is advocating for direct, inclusive, predictable, adequate, and flexible finance to Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities, and their women and youth, and supports their conservation priorities. RRI is also urging governments to advance gender justice through implementation of the CBD Gender Plan of Action, ensuring that women’s and girls’ rights and leadership are reflected in biodiversity policies and financing. These efforts include greater recognition of the contributions and rights of people of African descent embodying traditional lifestyles, including through implementation of CBD Decision 16/6.
Alongside these priorities, the RRI coalition and its allies are working to safeguard progress made in previous biodiversity negotiations through the #StopTheRollbacks campaign, which calls on governments to maintain existing rights protections. As part of the campaign, the coalition issued an open letter ahead of the summit outlining 10 requests for negotiators. These requests focus on reinforcing rights-based conservation commitments, securing equitable financing and benefit sharing from digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, and ensuring meaningful participation in decision making for Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities.
“Governments have an opportunity at CBD COP17 to demonstrate that the commitments they made in 2022 were more than words on paper. That means recognizing our territories, respecting our right to make decisions about them, and ensuring that funding reaches the communities doing the work of protecting biodiversity. We are calling on negotiators to defend the progress already made and build on it,” said Clemencia Carabalí, president of the Association of Afro-descendant Women of Northern Cauca.
Throughout CBD COP17, the RRI coalition will advocate for decisions that strengthen collective land and resource rights, integrate robust safeguards, expand access to financing, and support community-led conservation. As governments assess progress toward their 2030 biodiversity commitments, the RRI coalition is urging them to ensure that the people who have long cared for the world’s ecosystems have the rights, resources, and authority to continue doing so.
Learn more about RRI’s priorities at CBD COP17: https://rightsandresources.org/cbd-cop17/
Learn more about the #StopTheRollbacks campaign: https://rightsandresources.org/campaign/stop-the-rollbacks/
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About Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)
RRI is a global coalition working to advance the land, forest, and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, local communities, and the women and youth within these communities. RRI supports data, analysis, and advocacy to promote rights-based approaches to climate, conservation, and sustainable development.
Learn more: www.rightsandresources.org.
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