Syllabus: 

GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment 

Context: Recently, Food and Agriculture Organization has supported seven countries in obtaining $5.8 million from the Kunming Biodiversity Fund (KBF) to embed biodiversity considerations into their agrifood systems.

More on the News

• This fund will support projects in Cook Islands, Madagascar, Mexico, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Uganda. 
• The projects aim to make farming systems more nature-friendly and help countries meet global biodiversity targets.

About the Projects

• Madagascar–Uganda–Mexico: Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Agrifood Systems It aims to accelerate NBSAP implementation by improving policies, institutional capacity, incentives, and knowledge sharing for biodiversity-friendly agrifood systems.
• Cook Islands: Community Empowerment through Ecosystem Knowledge It focuses on strengthening ecosystem data, traditional knowledge, and community-led conservation especially by women and youth to support sustainable biodiversity management.

• Nepal: Managing invasive alien species  It seeks for Community-based and participatory approaches to tackle invasive species that harm biodiversity and local livelihoods.

• Sri Lanka: Strengthening Biosecurity Against Invasive Species It aims to enhances national prevention and control systems through better border checks, trained personnel, and community engagement.

• Turkiye: Strengthening ecosystem resilience It seeks to promotes biodiversity-friendly practices, water-efficient farming, and sustainable livelihoods to safeguard the lake’s ecological health.

Kunming Biodiversity Fund

• It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the China to help developing countries implement the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
• The Fund’s focus is on multilateral, international operations, providing grants to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity components, and fair benefit-sharing especially in developing countries. 

Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

• It is a global plan adopted by 196 countries in 2022 to stop and reverse biodiversity loss. 

• The framework is structured around four overarching global goals to be achieved by 2050:

• Maintaining and enhancing ecosystem integrity, resilience, and connectivity; halting human-induced species extinction and increasing native species abundance.
• Sustainable use and management of biodiversity that supports ecosystem services and human well-being.
• Fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
• Securing adequate means of implementation including finance, capacity building, technology transfer, and cooperation.

• A key finance goal (Target 19) seeks to mobilize at least $200 billion annually by 2030 from all sources, including $30 billion for developing countries, even as the global biodiversity funding gap remains about $700 billion a year.

• Cali Fund: 

• It is a financial mechanism created to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. 
• It is designed to generate funds from industries that use genetic resources and is a key part of the broader Multilateral Mechanism on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of digital sequence information (DSI). 

At least half of its proceeds are directed to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, recognising their key role in conserving and sustainably using biodiversity.

Sources:
Down to Earth
MPTF