Cop17 closed with an agreement to accelerate nature protection and a report showing restoration progress, but financing remains insufficient.
The Cop17 on biodiversity concluded on 31 October in Yerevan, Armenia, with an agreement reached after a long night of negotiations. Governments approved a pathway to accelerate the implementation of global nature protection targets by 2030, but some of the most important issues remain unresolved, starting with financing.
The conference's overall assessment comes four years after the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the agreement signed in 2022 by nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The first global review of progress, presented at Yerevan, confirmed that the world is still far from achieving most of the 23 targets set out in the framework. According to the assessments reported during the conference, 22 targets are behind schedule. Among these is the well-known target to protect at least 30 per cent of land and seas, restore degraded ecosystems, and reduce economic incentives that harm nature.
With the adoption of the Yerevan Pathway, we demonstrate our collective determination to address one of the most urgent challenges of our time
Hambardzum Matevosyan, President of COP17
The main negotiating outcome is the Yerevan Pathway, the route agreed upon by governments to accelerate the implementation of commitments made at Kunming-Montreal. The document calls on countries to strengthen national policies, address the drivers of biodiversity loss, and more fully integrate nature protection into economic decisions. But, as its name suggests, it is a direction, not a detailed plan. In some respects, the outcome resembles a list of homework assignments: targets are agreed at the international level, but it is then up to individual countries to decide how to achieve them, with what resources and through which policies. Without new binding obligations, the risk is that the gap between commitments and their implementation will remain very wide.
Overall, the conference adopted nearly 50 decisions on topics including conservation, scientific monitoring, resource mobilisation, and the involvement of local communities. Among the outcomes was also the approval of the operational rules for the new permanent body dedicated to indigenous peoples and local communities, to strengthen their participation in decision-making processes under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Among these was also Italy's accession to the Fungal Conservation Pledge, an international commitment to strengthen the protection of fungi in biodiversity policies. The accession, announced on 27 October by Undersecretary for the Environment Claudio Barbaro, brings to 17 the number of countries that have signed the initiative, launched in 2024 by Chile and the United Kingdom together with the Fungi Foundation. The goal is to recognise fungi as an autonomous kingdom of life and integrate them into national conservation strategies, on a par with animals and plants. An important step for organisms that are fundamental to soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem functioning, yet still little considered in nature protection policies.
The final agreement of Cop17 nonetheless acknowledges that, without a rapid acceleration, the 2030 targets will not be met. The central issue concerns the resources needed to translate international commitments into concrete action.
The final test will not be what governments agreed in Yerevan, but what they change once they return home.
Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Alongside the delays on global targets, Cop17 also delivered encouraging results on ecosystem restoration. On 29 October — a day at Cop17 dedicated specifically to nature restoration — Nature's Comeback was presented: the first global report on ecosystem restoration progress, produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Fao), and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
According to the report, approximately 2.52 million square kilometres of ecosystems across 149 countries are currently subject to restoration interventions. The documented initiatives have contributed to the creation of over one million green jobs and, in several territories, to the recovery and return of threatened species (hence the report's name). Progress, however, varies greatly depending on the ecosystem. On land, documented interventions cover 49 per cent of the estimated area needed to achieve the corresponding 2030 restoration target. For freshwater ecosystems the figure drops to 4.5 per cent, while for marine and coastal ecosystems it reaches 23 per cent. The data are also affected by differences in monitoring and reporting systems across individual countries. Another notable element concerns wetlands: since 2022, the percentage of countries reporting having implemented restoration or rehabilitation programmes has risen from 8 to 54 per cent.
"Five years into the United Nations Decade, the result is clear: restoration works," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of Unep and United Nations Under-Secretary-General. The United Nations assessment therefore shows that restoration interventions are producing results, but we are not doing so at the pace and scale required. To meet the commitments made by 2030, at the current rate of progress, we would need to triple our efforts, and annual financing for restoration would need to rise from the current 64 billion dollars to approximately 296 billion.
During Cop17, five new initiatives were recognised as World Restoration Flagships — the United Nations designation awarded to large-scale, long-term ecosystem restoration projects recognised as exemplary models. Among these is Forestami, the first Italian project to receive the recognition and the only European one among those honoured in 2026. LifeGate was present in Yerevan to cover the award ceremony. Forestami aims to bring nature back to the Milan metropolitan area, increasing tree cover by 5 per cent and revitalising urban spaces across an area of 2.55 square kilometres. The project involves institutions, research bodies, businesses and citizens, with interventions that can help counter the urban heat island effect, improve air quality and promote biodiversity.
Among the other recognised projects are two urban restoration experiences from the Americas. In Seattle, United States, the Green Seattle Partnership has been working for twenty years on the recovery of urban forests through collaboration between local government, community organisations and volunteers. To date, 8.31 square kilometres of forest areas have been subject to restoration interventions, representing nearly 98 per cent of the target set for 2030. The project has also made it possible to plant 1.5 million native plants, engaging citizens in the removal of invasive species and the stewardship of natural areas.
In Barranquilla, Colombia, the Urban Nature Reborn project focuses instead on the recovery of the Ciénaga de Mallorquín, a coastal wetland compromised by waste accumulation, sedimentation and habitat fragmentation. Some 4.45 square kilometres are already subject to restoration interventions, with the goal of reaching 7.4 by 2030. The recovery of mangroves and other coastal habitats is accompanied by the creation of public spaces and new economic opportunities for local communities: some fishermen work in mangrove nurseries, while other residents are involved in nature tourism activities.
The financing question ran through the entire two weeks of negotiations. The Kunming-Montreal agreement provides for the mobilisation of at least 200 billion dollars per year by 2030 for biodiversity, through public and private resources. Countries considered developed were also meant to mobilise at least 20 billion dollars per year in favour of those defined as developing countries by 2025 — a target that was not met.
At Cop17, nearly 2 billion dollars in new financing and initiatives were announced, including 560 million through the replenishment of the Global Environment Facility and the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, 500 million through the Species Recovery Alliance, and over 330 million through the Value Nature Fund, dedicated to mobilising private capital. These are significant resources, but insufficient relative to global targets.
Among the initiatives presented was also Friends of Credits for Nature and Biodiversity, an international cooperation platform launched by the European Union together with France and Peru to promote nature credits and attract private investment in ecosystem conservation and restoration, without currently providing for new funds or mandatory markets.
Negotiations also focused on defining a permanent financial mechanism for biodiversity beyond 2030. Governments reached a compromise on general principles, while deferring to Cop18 the decision on its definitive structure. The question of whether to expand the number of countries required to contribute to international financing also remained open.
The difficulties concern above all the countries of the global south. According to data reported by Mongabay, in 2025 African countries received approximately 389 million dollars in international funding for protected and conserved areas, 32 per cent less than the average for the 2022–2024 period. During Cop17, the African group, representing 54 countries, called for greater resources to meet global conservation targets.
We cannot protect nature while continuing to finance its destruction. Resources must reach the countries and communities that need them. And biodiversity must be embedded in everyday economic decisions.
Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Another central issue at Cop17 was the reform of subsidies harmful to biodiversity. According to Unep's State of Finance for Nature 2026 report, for every dollar invested in the protection and restoration of ecosystems, around 30 dollars go towards activities that contribute to their degradation. Overall, public and private financial flows harmful to nature amount to approximately 7,300 billion dollars per year. The Kunming-Montreal agreement calls for the identification, phasing out or reform of incentives harmful to biodiversity, reducing them by at least 500 billion dollars annually by 2030.
The Armenian presidency placed this issue among the conference's priorities, also promoting the Yerevan Call on Incentives Positive to Biodiversity, an initiative to encourage the transformation of economic incentives. The final text, once again, merely encourages governments to accelerate the implementation of the target, taking into account their respective national circumstances. No new binding obligations on subsidy reduction were introduced. For this reason, in the corridors of Cop17 and especially at side conferences, there were calls to address the elephant in the room — namely, financing for nature and against harmful activities.
Among the conference's most limited outcomes was that of the Cali Fund, established at Cop16 in 2024 to collect financial contributions from companies that use digital sequence information derived from biodiversity, for example in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. A significant portion of the resources collected is meant to go to indigenous peoples and local communities. At Cop17, however, the fund had received barely around ten thousand dollars, against the goal of mobilising one billion dollars in contributions. Governments confirmed some criteria already agreed upon regarding the fund's operation, deferring further decisions to the next conference.
Cop18 will be held in Quito, Ecuador, in 2028, when only two years will remain until the deadline for global biodiversity targets.
Despite the importance of the decisions at stake, Cop17 on biodiversity received far less media and political attention than United Nations conferences on climate. As the Guardian also reported, the Yerevan negotiations took place away from the spotlight, with limited participation from political leaders and reduced press coverage. And yet, biodiversity loss and the climate crisis are closely linked: the destruction of ecosystems contributes to global warming, while rising temperatures accelerate habitat degradation and species extinction.
The close of the conference reopened the debate on the effectiveness of Cops. In over thirty years of biodiversity negotiations, none of the previous sets of global targets has been fully achieved. Among the main criticisms is the functioning of the consensus-based decision-making process, which allows even a small number of countries to slow down or weaken agreements (as becomes apparent every time sessions run on well past the official close of the conference). Specifically for the biodiversity Cop, Juan Carlos Navarro, Panama's Environment Minister, proposed introducing majority-based decisions and exploring a single annual environmental conference capable of addressing climate, biodiversity and other environmental issues together. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of Unep, also stressed the need to make the United Nations environmental conventions system more efficient, reducing overlaps and accelerating the implementation of commitments.