Nearing the conclusion of a sometimes fractious two-week meeting, nations of the world today agreed on a historic package of measures deemed critical to addressing the dangerous loss of biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems.
In addition to the GBF, the meeting approved a series of related agreements on its implementation, including planning, monitoring, reporting and review;resource mobilization; helping nations to build their capacity to meet the obligations; and digital sequence information on genetic resources.
The fund would complement existing support and scale up financing to ensure the timely implementation of the GBF with adequate, predictable and timely flow of funds.
Digital sequence information on genetic resources β a dominant topic at COP15 β has many commercial and non-commercial applications, including pharmaceutical product development, improved crop breeding, taxonomy, and the monitoring of invasive species.
The agreement also obligates countries to monitor and report every five years orless on a large set of "headline" and other indicators related to progress against the GBF's goals and targets. Headline indicators include the percent of land and seas effective conserved, the number of companies disclosing their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity,and many others. The CBD will combine national information submitted by late February and late June into global trend and progress reports.
