Nations agree 'Yerevan Pathway' to speed up nature recovery as COP17 ends with $2bn pledged

Nearly 200 countries have agreed a new roadmap to speed up efforts to protect nature, as the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP17, closed in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, on Saturday.

The agreement, known as the Yerevan Pathway, comes at the halfway point to 2030, after a global review found the world off track to meet the biodiversity targets it set itself four years ago. Alongside it, nearly $2 billion in new funding for nature was announced.

What was agreed

The pathway sets out priorities for the four years left to deliver the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the landmark 2022 deal that committed countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature. Among its best-known goals is protecting 30% of the world's land and seas by the end of the decade.

The new roadmap calls on countries to tackle subsidies that harm nature, and to increase financial, scientific and technical support for developing countries. It also asks governments to align national budgets and economic decisions with the framework, and to strengthen monitoring and reporting.

"We cannot protect nature while continuing to finance its destruction," said Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Countries adopted nearly 50 decisions in total, covering protected areas and forests, wildlife management, invasive species, marine and coastal life, and synthetic biology.

A stronger voice for Indigenous communities

After intensive negotiations, delegates also agreed the Sevan Guidelines. These set the rules for a new permanent body that will strengthen the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in shaping global biodiversity policy.

"Over these two weeks we have demonstrated that differences can be bridged, commitments can become decisions and cooperation can deliver," said the COP17 president, Hambardzum Matevosyan.

Nearly $2 billion for nature

The new money announced in Yerevan included $560 million under the latest replenishment of the Global Environment Facility and $500 million through the Species Recovery Alliance. A further $330 million is going to the Value Nature Fund, which aims to bring private investment into nature.

The Asian Development Bank launched a new biodiversity bond and investment incubator, and new indicators were agreed to make it easier to track progress and hold countries to account.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said: "In Yerevan, we saw environmental multilateralism prevail once again. Countries came together, found the spirit of compromise and allowed us to agree important decisions that will support real progress for people and for planet."

The real test

The talks were not easy. They ran past their scheduled finish into the early hours of Saturday, and finance remained the hardest issue to settle. The next conference, COP18, will be held in Ecuador, with two years left to reach the targets.

As Ms Schomaker put it: "Ultimately, the test is not what governments agreed in Yerevan, but what they change when they return home."

The UK is among the countries signed up to the 2022 framework, so the decisions made in Armenia will feed into the work of protecting wildlife and green spaces here, from national nature reserves to the parks, canals and woodland on Birmingham's own doorstep.