International Day for Biodiversity and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Did you know that May 22 is the International Day for Biodiversity? Until recently, I didn’t. And moreover, I didn’t realize this date has been the annual International Day for Biodiversity since 1992. And there has also been an official International Year of Biodiversity (2010), and even an International Decade on Biodiversity (2011-2020). How can it be that there have been such high-profile official global celebrations of biodiversity for more than 30 years, and yet they haven’t been publicized much here in the US? Is it just that we’ve decided that Earth Day in April suffices for our nation to think about environmental issues? Or is there a deeper reason?

Unfortunately, there does seem to be a deeper reason why our country has never promoted these international celebrations of biodiversity. A sad irony stems from this paradox: (1) Many individuals and organizations in the US have been instrumental in providing research, policy analysis, and funding to launch global commitments to promote biodiversity, but (2) Alone among almost all of the nations of the world, our national government has never ratified its commitment to the longstanding United Nations program to promote biodiversity. What is that UN program and what have been its major accomplishments?

The UN biodiversity program was generated by an entity called the Convention on Biological Diversity (acronym CBD). CBD began with conversations that occurred soon after the publication of the proceedings of the National Forum on BioDiversity, held in Washington, DC in 1986 and published in the book Biodiversity in 1988, discussed in my previous Pando Populus blog. 

In that year, an Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity was conceived as a United Nations initative, leading to an Ad Hoc Working Group of Technical and Legal Experts that crafted a text to launch the Convention on Biological Diversity. In the language of such UN activities, the Convention’s text was “opened for signature” at the famous Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and “entered into force” in 1993. 

Entered into force, the Convention on Biological Diversity proceeded with a structure featuring a series of Conferences of the Parties (acronym COP; i.e., the parties – largely nations – that signed on to participate in the Convention on Biological Diversity). After three initial annual meetings, these conferences typically occurred every two years. The regular conferences became known by their acronyms combined with the number of conferences which had occurred over the course of the convention: for example, COP 1, COP 2, etc. The first UN biodiversity conference was held in 1994 in Nassau, Bahamas; the most recent biodiversity conference was COP 16, held in Cali, Columbia in late 2024 and early 2025.

What has been the evolution of the CBD COPs since their origin in 1994? Of the CBD COPs that have now occurred, several have been especially notable for establishing long-term strategic direction:

CBD COP 1 (1994) – Certified membership of initial 105 ratified states plus European Community, including Canada and Mexico but not the United States; clarified the relationship between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the umbrella UN Commission on Sustainable Development; adopted medium-term work program. Member commitments include development of a national biodiversity strategy.

CBD COP 10 (2010) – Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, 2011-2020 was adopted in Nagoya, Japan. This plan includes the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (so named after the prefecture within which Nagoya is located). The targets relate to five strategic goals: A. Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society, B. Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use, C. Improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity, D. Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services, and E. Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and capacity building.

CBD COP 15 (2022) – Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted to guide action through 2030. Also known simply as The Biodiversity Plan, its ambitious targets include the 30 by 30 initiative to designate at least 30 percent of global land and sea as protected areas by the year 2030.

CBD COP 16 (2024-25) – CBD COP 16 began in 2024 and ended in February, 2025. It reached some significant agreement under the rubric of Making Peace With Nature regarding an expanded role of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting biodiversity, and on the operationalization of a new global mechanism to share benefits from the use of digital genetic information. Finally, as reported in its press release, it reached agreements on biodiversity finance, on planning, monitoring, reporting and review, and on the full set of indicators to measure global and national progress towards implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon in 2022.

The international progress embodied in these agreements is truly remarkable. Indeed, the website of the Convention on Biodiversity proudly states that its work has yielded “probably the most all-encompassing international agreement ever adopted” (https://www.cbd.int/gbo1/chap-02.shtml  accessed May 7, 2025).

But earlier I noted that the United States was nearly the only nation in the world to avoid ratifying its involvement in the CBD. This lessened engagement resulted in our nation failing to engage more fully in global biodiversity efforts. And it also translated into a reduced agenda for our own national biodiversity efforts. In my next blog, I’ll look at the limited national government efforts to advance biodiversity in the US, setting the stage for us to explore in more depth why the biodiversity efforts of California and its cities are so vital.