COP16, this year in Cali, Colombia
What is your motto?
“Peace with Nature” is a call for reflection to improve our relationship with the environment, rethinking an economic model that doesn't prioritize the extraction, overexploitation, and pollution of nature.
What is COP16?
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international treaty adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Its objective is to establish agendas, commitments, and frameworks for action to conserve biological diversity and ensure its sustainable use, as well as to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from the utilization of genetic resources.
The COP is held every two years. In 2024, for the first time in history, Colombia will host the 16th edition of the biennial Conference on Biodiversity. Each of these conferences seeks to take decisive action to protect biological diversity.
When will it take place?
This year, COP16 will take place in Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca (Colombia), between October 21 and November 1, 2024.
Why Cali?
To talk about Cali is to talk about biodiversity. It boasts more than 2,000 springs, 283 streams, seven rivers, and 350,000 trees in its urban area. After a technical evaluation by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, it was determined that only two capital cities met the requirements to host the event. From that moment on, a massive popular mobilization took place across the Pacific in support of a common goal: the COP16 Biodiversity Summit.
For the National Government, the selection of Cali as the host of COP16 is an opportunity to highlight the region with the greatest biodiversity in the country, the Pacific, which also houses the second most biodiverse area on the planet: the Chocó biogeographic region.
What is the Convention on Biological Diversity?
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed by leaders of 150 countries at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This convention promotes sustainable development through a vision that involves ecosystems and people.
Susana Muhamad González, President of COP16 Colombia, states:
“The added value of holding COP16 in Colombia lies in our vision of 'Peace with Nature' and in recognizing that the true struggle of the 21st century is for life. If we manage to transform our relationship with nature, as well as our production and consumption practices, and ensure that collective actions promote life rather than destroy it, we will be addressing the most important challenges of our time. Like the eternal flower of Inírida, Colombians have learned the keys to resilience to achieve lasting peace in the country's most excluded territories and in those with the greatest natural wealth. COP16 is not simply a summit; it is the path that allows us to mobilize globally toward this common purpose.”
What does our country do?
What are NBSAPs?
NBSAPs, by their acronym in English, are the strategies and action plans that a country, in this case Colombia, implements to advance the protection of biological diversity.
This action plan brings together initiatives that allow for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, to halt and reverse its loss by 2030, ensuring a positive future for nature.
These strategies emerge as a work plan to meet the goals established in the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework, the historic agreement reached during COP15, which will be reviewed for the first time at COP16, to be held in Colombia.
Regional meetings to update the Biodiversity Action Plan (NBSAP).
The Ministry of Environment has established various participatory spaces leading up to COP16 to discuss community initiatives in all regions of the country to update Colombia's Biodiversity Action Plan.
This set of proposals, known by its acronym in English as NBSAP, are the strategies and action plans that each country that is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in this case Colombia, must implement to meet the goals established in the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework, the historic agreement reached during COP15 and which will have its first review at COP16, to be held in Colombia.
Colombia Biodiversity Action Plan 2016-2030
It is the roadmap or instrument through which measures and actions to be implemented in the country are established. It contains, among other things, guidelines for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity; the socioecological approach, biodiversity as a source, basis, and guarantee of the supply of ecosystem services. It promotes participation, governance, and the public and collective nature of decisions regarding biodiversity; and a solid, current, and adaptable conceptual approach.
In response to the commitments of the Colombian National Government as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the new global biodiversity framework, Kumming Montreal is currently advancing in a process of updating the Biodiversity Action Plan 2016-2030. This process will define actions aimed at generating enabling conditions and intersectoral actions to strengthen governance, the exercise of authority, monitoring and traceability capacity, as well as the involvement of social actors for biodiversity governance.
