“Global Summit on Nature Adopts a Novel Way to Pay for Conservation" Article Reflection No. 116 (11/3/2024)

Article:  “Global Summit on Nature Adopts a Novel Way to Pay for Conservation”

In the article “Global Summit on Nature Adopts a Novel Way to Pay for Conservation,” journalist Catrin Einhorn covers the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), where delegates agreed to funds from digital sequence information sources to financially support biodiversity conservation efforts. Through this agreement, the delegates recommended that the companies using the genetic databases should give 0.1% of revenue, according to the article. Einhorn writes that, with this agreement, there is an estimated $1 billion increase through these funds, and a substantial amount of the money will be given to indigenous peoples, who are increasingly seen to be “custodians of biodiversity.” Meanwhile, other agenda item(s) were not discussed due to the lacking quorum, according to the article. 

What struck me most about the article was how it talked about not being able to “solve” certain issues mainly because there wasn’t enough quorum and time. The issues must be so complicated and the challenge of considering the status quos of so many countries. I wonder how long it will take to really be able to discuss all those topics that were put to the side for so long.