Swiss environmental associations dissatisfied with species protection funding
Keystone-SDA
Swiss environmental organisations consider the financing plan adopted at the World Conference on Nature in Rome to be inadequate. The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), however, is satisfied with the results of the conference.
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The resolutions were important steps towards the global implementation of the framework, the FOEN told the Keystone-SDA Swiss News Agency on Friday.
Almost 200 countries agreed on a multi-year financing plan for the protection of nature and biodiversity at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16). Negotiations were interrupted in November 2024 because no agreement was reached before the end of the conference.
Specifically, the states have now decided that funding will be provided within the framework of the existing mechanism, the FOEN explained. Switzerland has also campaigned for this, it said.
This is precisely what the environmental organisations Pro Natura, WWF Switzerland and BirdLife Switzerland criticise. The establishment of a fund on which the countries of the global south could have had a say failed due to resistance from industrialised countries, they wrote in a press release on Friday.
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In addition, according to the FOEN, the decision to better coordinate the various conventions in the environmental sector and make use of synergies, which Switzerland had played a key role in promoting, was also adopted.
Praise for monitoring mechanisms
The monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the global biodiversity framework, which was also adopted at the conference, was received positively across the board. Countries must report on their progress in achieving the 23 goals by the next conference in Armenia in 2026. According to the FOEN, Switzerland has advocated the establishment of such a monitoring mechanism as part of its negotiating mandate.
The nature conservation organisations also described this decision as “pleasing”. “The nature conservation organisations expect Switzerland to participate constructively in the financing process and submit a report that uses the newly defined indicators to show that it is working effectively to conserve its highly endangered biodiversity,” said Friedrich Wulf, International Biodiversity Policy Project Manager at Pro Natura, in a press release.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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