Strengthening global mountain governance was the focus of a side event at the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia.
Titled “Global mountain governance: importance for building synergies between Biodiversity conservation and Climate Change adaptation”, the aim was to strengthen cooperation between regional mountain platforms and to better link mountain biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Concretely, participants discussed a roadmap to strengthen the connections between biodiversity conservation actions in mountain ecosystems and climate change in the timeframe between the CBD COP 16 in Cali and the United Nations Climate Change conference (UNFCCC COP 30) in Belém do Pará (Brazil) – and beyond.
The Alpine Convention participated in the panel discussion, presenting its work on biodiversity and climate action under the Slovenian Presidency and in the Alpine Biodiversity and Alpine Climate Boards. The Alpine perspective emphasised the importance of international cooperation for sharing experiences and innovative approaches at the technical level and striving for greater international recognition of mountains as a conservation priority, especially in the context of climate change.
The Alpine Convention joined representatives from the Andes (Andean Mountain Initiative, CONDESAN), Carpathians (the Carpathian Convention), Hindu Kush Himalaya (ICIMOD), and Kyrgyzstan as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Mountain Partnership, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and the United Nations Environment Programme.
