As countries adopt the Yerevan Pathway to accelerate nature protection, questions remain over whether new funding, economic reforms and community participation can reverse biodiversity loss before the 2030 deadline.
The world has four years left to deliver on an ambitious promise to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Yet, as governments gather to assess progress towards their global conservation commitments, a difficult contradiction is emerging: countries want to protect nature while economic systems continue to finance activities that destroy it.
That contradiction took centre stage at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17), which concluded in Armenia with the adoption of a new roadmap known as the Yerevan Pathway.
The agreement comes at a critical moment. A global review has found that the world is not on track to achieve the biodiversity targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, leaving governments with an increasingly narrow window to turn international commitments into measurable action.
Among the most significant announcements was nearly $2 billion in new biodiversity funding, alongside decisions intended to strengthen conservation financing, scientific cooperation, environmental monitoring and the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
But beyond the diplomatic achievement lies a more difficult question: can additional funding and another international agreement change the economic and political decisions that continue to put ecosystems under pressure?
For countries across Africa, where communities depend heavily on natural resources for food, water, agriculture and livelihoods, the answer carries consequences far beyond environmental protection.
The Yerevan Pathway establishes priorities for the remaining four years of implementing the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It calls on governments to address subsidies harmful to nature, increase financial and technical support for developing countries and align national budgets and economic decisions with biodiversity objectives.
The emphasis on harmful subsidies is particularly important because it shifts the conversation beyond conservation projects towards the economic structures that influence how land, forests, water and other natural resources are used.
Governments may establish protected areas and announce restoration programmes, but those efforts can be undermined when public money continues to support activities that damage ecosystems.
Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, captured this contradiction in her assessment of the negotiations.
“We cannot protect nature while continuing to finance its destruction,” she said.
Her remarks point to one of the central challenges facing biodiversity policy: conservation cannot succeed through environmental ministries and international funding programmes alone. It requires governments to examine decisions across agriculture, infrastructure, energy, trade and public finance.
For African countries, this raises difficult questions about how development priorities can be reconciled with ecological protection, particularly where communities depend on forests, wetlands, fisheries and agricultural landscapes.
The funding announcement offers an opportunity to address some of these pressures, although the figures require closer examination.
The nearly $2 billion announced at COP17 includes $560 million under the latest replenishment of the Global Environment Facility and $500 million through the Species Recovery Alliance.
A further $330 million is expected to go towards the Value Nature Fund, which seeks to mobilise private investment for nature.
The Asian Development Bank also announced a biodiversity bond and investment incubator, signalling growing interest in financial instruments that can attract private capital into conservation.
However, the size of the announcements alone does not establish whether countries facing the greatest biodiversity pressures will receive adequate support.
For developing nations, the more consequential questions concern accessibility, distribution and accountability. How much financing will reach national conservation programmes? What proportion will support community-led initiatives? And how will governments ensure that resources translate into measurable ecological improvements?
These questions are particularly relevant to Africa, where biodiversity protection intersects with development priorities, land rights, food systems and the livelihoods of rural communities.
Another important outcome of COP17 was the agreement on the Sevan Guidelines, which establish the operating rules for a new permanent body intended to strengthen the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in global biodiversity policymaking.
Their inclusion is significant because communities living closest to ecosystems often possess generations of knowledge about local species, forests, water systems and changing environmental conditions.
Yet their involvement in conservation decisions has not always translated into meaningful influence over how natural resources are managed.
The new guidelines create an opportunity to strengthen their role in shaping international biodiversity policy. Their effectiveness, however, will depend on whether governments and conservation institutions move beyond consultation towards genuine participation in decision-making.
This is particularly important in Africa, where community livelihoods and conservation objectives frequently intersect. Protecting biodiversity without recognising the rights, knowledge and economic realities of local populations risks creating conservation policies that are difficult to sustain.
COP17 also adopted nearly 50 decisions addressing protected areas, forests, wildlife management, invasive alien species, marine and coastal biodiversity, and synthetic biology.
Together, these decisions demonstrate the breadth of the challenge facing governments as they approach 2030.
Biodiversity loss is not confined to the disappearance of individual species. It affects the ecosystems that sustain agriculture, regulate water systems, support fisheries and contribute to human wellbeing.
When these systems deteriorate, the consequences can extend into food insecurity, declining household incomes and increased vulnerability among communities dependent on natural resources.
This makes biodiversity protection an economic and development issue as much as an environmental one.
For African policymakers, the challenge is therefore to ensure that conservation is integrated into national development planning rather than treated as a separate environmental obligation.
The Yerevan Pathway recognises this by calling for national budgets and economic decisions to align with global biodiversity commitments. It also places greater emphasis on monitoring and reporting, recognising that governments cannot demonstrate progress without credible information about what is changing on the ground.
COP17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan described the outcome as evidence that countries could bridge differences and translate commitments into decisions.
UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen similarly welcomed the agreement, saying the negotiations had demonstrated that environmental multilateralism could still deliver cooperation and compromise.
But the strongest test of the agreement will come after governments leave the negotiating rooms.
As Schomaker observed, the real measure of success will not be what governments agreed in Yerevan, but what they change when they return home.
The next biodiversity conference, COP18, will take place in Ecuador, leaving countries with another opportunity to assess implementation as the 2030 deadline approaches.
By then, the world will have even less time to correct its course.
The nearly $2 billion announced in Armenia may provide an important financial boost, but funding cannot substitute for political accountability, coherent economic policies and the involvement of the communities whose lives depend on functioning ecosystems.
Ultimately, the question confronting governments is not whether they can agree on another global biodiversity roadmap. It is whether they are prepared to change the policies, spending priorities and development decisions that determine the future of nature.
For Africa, the stakes are particularly high. The continent’s natural ecosystems are essential to livelihoods, food production and economic resilience. Their protection cannot depend solely on international declarations or funding announcements.
The real measure of the Yerevan Pathway will be whether its promises translate into healthier ecosystems, stronger community rights and development policies that no longer treat nature as an expendable resource.
