This week, Colombia inaugurated the 16th meeting of the UN Biodiversity Conference in the city of Cali, with the theme of “Peace with Nature.” Drawing from its own experience of a prolonged armed conflict intertwined with exploitation of natural resources, biodiversity loss, and socio-environmental disputes, Colombia has brought peace and conflict considerations in the traditionally environmental agenda. It is essential to use this momentum to mainstream conflict sensitivity in strategies and actions toward achieving global biodiversity targets, to support conflict-affected countries in this process, and to explore how environmental efforts can be effectively merged with peace objectives. PAX will join COP16 to support these efforts through sharing its expertise on addressing environmental impacts of conflicts and advancing the discussion on nature-based solutions for peace.
Since the establishment of the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992, the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Colombia is the first one to feature peace and conflict issues. On October 29, Colombia will officially launch its Declaration of the World Coalition for Peace with Nature. The country’s signature diplomatic initiative seeks to rethink the relationship between humans and ecosystems, addressing the impact of conflicts, extractive and unsustainable economies, and other nature-destructive practices. The Declaration will recognize that “environmental protection and the promotion and building of peace are intrinsically linked and mutually reinforcing” and that “achieving peace with nature requires making peace between peoples, respecting international law and focusing efforts on the conservation, sustainable use and restoration of life on our planet.”
The links between nature conservation, peace and conflict
The interlinkages between the environment, peace and security have become increasingly clear. On the one hand, armed conflicts destroy ecosystems and exacerbate biodiversity loss, leave a trail of conflict-pollution and toxic remnants of war, and lead to degradation and overexploitation of natural resources due to weakened environmental governance and unsustainable coping strategies by affected populations, as illustrated by PAX’s own research around the environmental dimension of wars. At the same time, efforts directed at nature conservation and biodiversity restoration in fragile and conflict-affected settings can have positive effects on communities’ resilience, social cohesion and peace.
Therefore, the political recognition of this nexus, promoted by Colombia throughout COP16, is a welcome and much needed framing for environmental and peace issues to be addressed comprehensively for the benefit of people and the planet. However, it is vital to translate this thinking into action, as decision-makers from over 190 countries will decide in Cali on the next steps to make progress on biodiversity preservation.
Translating environmental and peace ambitions into action
The first meeting since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022, COP16 aims to take stock of progress towards the global biodiversity preservation goals and to negotiate on how they can be monitored and resourced. States are expected to present their national strategies and action plans to ensure that the achievement of the GBF targets and goals is on track. However, what the Global Biodiversity Framework has been conspicuously silent about is the capacity (or lack thereof) of conflict-affected countries to deliver on its ambitions. With numerous obstacles to nature restoration and conservation in areas affected by armed conflict and a low appetite for biodiversity investments in at-risk countries, the GBF implementation is problematic, if not impossible, in a vast number of areas that are also among the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
To change this, Peace@CBD – the community of NGOs, institutions, and individuals, of which PAX is a member – has been advocating for COP16 to address the relationships between nature, peace and conflict. In the policy recommendations for the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, we call for mainstreaming conflict-sensitive, inclusive and rights-based approaches at all levels of GBF implementation: from National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans to the financial mechanisms underpinning them, to the monitoring frameworks and down to the level of individual projects.
However, nature preservation efforts should not be limited to GBF implementation. The same governments that will be discussing halting biodiversity loss in Cali should also champion the International Law Commission’s Principles on Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts, and the ICRC’s updated Military Guidelines on the Protection of the Natural Environment in Armed Conflict. States should also support various UN processes and resolutions aimed at addressing environmental consequences of conflicts.
Nature-based solutions for peace in support of biodiversity goals
The international community gathering in Cali should also explore how environmental efforts in fragile and conflict-affected settings can actually have positive effects on communities’ resilience, social cohesion, and peace. Through the COP16 side event programme, more and more states have been raising the need to integrate biodiversity protection into peacebuilding, merging environmental and peace objectives. In this regard, nature-based solutions (NbS) – defined as actions to manage, restore and protect the environment while simultaneously providing benefits for human well-being – have seen uptake from governments, communities and organizations around the world.
While NbS can indeed offer a holistic approach to climate action, development and social resilience, they can come with shortcomings and risks, if not programmed and implemented with the necessary social and environmental safeguards. There is an enormous need to learn from good practices, as well as challenges and failures, in the implementation of NbS in conflict-affected settings. For this reason, on October 29, PAX will be hosting a COP16 side event to stimulate critical discussion on the NbS’ potential and concrete ways to restore biodiversity in vulnerable and conflict-affected areas in support of the GBF objectives. The event will also serve as a platform to present an online catalog of Nature-based Solutions for Peace, containing cases of NbS practices from around the globe to inform and inspire programme design, policy formulation, and NbS investments in a just and peace-positive way.

Please register for the COP16 side event by clicking the link below: