High symbolism, high stakes mark historic 1st meeting of new biodiversity body dedicated to elevating the role and contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities
Indigenous peoples and local communities representation at the decision-making level of a UN environmental treaty is unprecedented
UN Convention on Biological Diversity
image:
During the inaugural meeting of CBD's new subsidiary body, delegates advanced the contribution of traditional knowledge to the first global report on collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreement of 2022, to be reviewed at CBD's COP17, Yerevan, Armenia, 19-30 October, 2026.
view moreCredit: CBD
Panama City-Montreal – Amid a mix of celebration and caution, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) made important progress and decisions on the operation and governance of a new Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) and Other Provisions of the Convention Related to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
At the Subsidiary Body’s inaugural meeting (SB8J-1, 27–30 October, Panama City), delegates advanced important aspects of work on CBD’s Article 8j, which relates to traditional knowledge, innovations and practices.
During the meeting, delegates:
- Advanced the contribution of traditional knowledge to the first global report on collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), to be reviewed in Yerevan, Armenia, in October 2026.
- Addressed foundational issues, such as the operation and governance of SB8J, including mechanisms to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities.
- Held in-depth dialogue on strategies for mobilizing resources to ensure the availability of and access to financial resources and funding, as well as other means of implementation, including capacity-building, development and technical support for indigenous peoples and local communities.
- Advanced discussions on guidelines to implement the Article 8j work programme
Strong support was expressed for reflecting the expertise of women and youth in the work of the CBD.
The Parties’ decisions in full, here, include bracketed text for resolution at COP17 next October in Armenia.
SB8J is the first permanent body of its kind established under a Multilateral Environmental Agreement. Dedicated to elevating the role and leveraging the contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities, this new Subsidiary Body was adopted in a landmark decision at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the CBD Convention (COP16) in 2024 in Cali, Colombia.
Colombia’s Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres, the current President of CBD’s COP16, hailed the new body as an “unprecedented step toward greater environmental democracy.”
The Minister of Environment of Panama, Juan Carlos Navarro, meanwhile, urged the body to ensure that commitments “translate into real policies, accessible funding, and visible results on the ground.”
Astrid Schomaker, CBD Executive Secretary, stressed: "This is just the beginning of the journey, but the first round of SB8J negotiations has paved the way for a fully operational body that has everything it needs to deliver on its mandate and marks a major step forward.”
Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily reports detailing negotiations: https://bit.ly/4oGtvWk
* * * * *
Post-meeting debrief, CBD Executive Secretary, transcript: https://bit.ly/4ntgZZ9, video: https://bit.ly/47PcmUF
Landscapes for biodiversity, food, climate and more
image:
Multifunctional land use in Wietingsmoor: in the moor, the “paludiculture” approach combines the production of biomass – by cultivating plants like reeds for building materials and peat substitutes – with the preservation of peat soils.
view moreCredit: Claudia Heindorf
Land use is at the heart of the many emergencies facing our world today: climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice and food insecurity. These – exacerbated by unsustainable practices such as industrial agriculture – combine to create simultaneous and interconnected crises. To overcome these challenges, large parts of the Earth's surface must meet several demands at the same time – from species conservation and food production to human well-being. This is where multifunctional landscapes come in, because they can meet many ecological, social and economic goals at once. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel have evaluated how using land in such ways can support nature conservation and ecosystem restoration. Their review article shows ways to redesign land use and nature conservation using integrated approaches. This was published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity.
“It is only when we understand synergies and conflicts of use that we can develop land use systems which will simultaneously meet different aims. These include: securing our food supply, regulating our climate, preserving our valuable biodiversity, and providing areas for rest and recreation,” explains Dr Marion Jay, postdoctoral researcher at Göttingen University’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development. With this in mind, the researchers analysed theoretical concepts and practical approaches to land use from different continents and time periods. In their article, they present a variety of models that promote biodiversity and multifunctionality in landscapes.
According to the researchers, multifunctional landscapes can take various forms. However, what they often have in common is a closely interconnected mosaic of forests, arable land, pastures and, in some cases, settlements, reconciling multiple land use demands. They cite traditional farming systems such as agroforestry or pastoralism as proven examples. However, both are being threatened by global trends such as industrial agriculture. In contrast, some modern multifunctional land use systems are being promoted worldwide via approaches such as “urban green and blue infrastructure”. Urban forests, parks and wetlands are designed to serve human well-being, biodiversity, the regulation of extreme weather events and urban agriculture, for example. Multifunctional land use also contributes to the restoration of destroyed nature. One example described in the article is “paludiculture”. This refers to sustainable agricultural production on wet or rewetted peatlands. Paludiculture combines the production of biomass for food, feed, construction material or biofuels, with the preservation of wetland habitats and soils, and the restoration of ecosystem services such as carbon storage and water regulation.
To effectively integrate multifunctional land use into nature conservation and restoration measures, commitment is needed across many levels: "Cross-sector cooperation, for example between agriculture, nature conservation and urban planning, is crucial. This also applies to landscapes where the protection of biodiversity is a priority, such as in protected areas,” says Tobias Plieninger, Professor of Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems at the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel. “Financial support, for instance by promoting both public and private investment and new business models, is just as important."
Original publication: Jay & Plieninger. Addressing landscape multifunctionality in conservation and restoration. Nature Reviews Biodiversity (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44358-025-00091-4
Oasis agroforestry – here in Tinghir, Morocco – is a traditional land-use system that combines the production of food and feed in different vegetation layers with ancient irrigation systems and a unique cultural diversity and cultural heritage.
Urban trees, parks, and lakes in Bengaluru, India, build a green and blue infrastructure that supports the well-being of people, providing food, timber, medicine, but also cooling and purifying air and water and carrying important spiritual values.
Credit
Tobias Plieninger
Contact:
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development
\www.uni-goettingen.de/en/677082.html
Journal
Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Method of Research
News article
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Addressing landscape multifunctionality in conservation and restoration
Article Publication Date
30-Oct-2025
Arctic predators exposed: New study finds bisphenols biomagnify up to polar bears
Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences
image:
Toxic trail of bisphenols through the Arctic food web.
view moreCredit: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology
A new study has uncovered alarming evidence that bisphenols (BPs) —plastic-related chemicals known to disrupt hormones—are accumulating and magnifying through Arctic food webs. Analyzing 32 bisphenol analogues in 134 samples from water, soil, sediments, and organisms near Svalbard, researchers found that compounds such as bisphenol A (BPA), bisphenol F (BPF), and BPPH concentrate from plankton to top predators, with polar bears showing levels up to 1396 ng g⁻¹ wet weight. The study also identified local contamination hotspots, including a firefighting training site and landfill leachate. These findings highlight that even remote Arctic ecosystems face local chemical threats and that BPs can biomagnify across trophic levels.
Bisphenols (BPs) are widely used in plastics, epoxy resins, and flame retardants, with bisphenol A (BPA) being the most common. Growing evidence links BPA exposure to metabolic, cardiovascular, and developmental disorders, prompting industries to replace it with structurally similar analogues such as bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF). However, the toxicity and environmental persistence of these substitutes remain poorly understood, especially in fragile polar ecosystems. Although long-range transport has brought many pollutants to the Arctic, the contribution of local pollution sources and the potential for trophic biomagnification of BPs have not been clearly established. Due to these uncertainties, comprehensive investigations on bisphenol sources and food-web transfer in the Arctic are urgently needed.
Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and their international partners have published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2025.100627) a study on October 9, 2025, in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, revealing the first clear evidence that BPs biomagnify within Arctic marine food webs. The team analyzed 32 bisphenol analogues in sediments, soils, and biota collected near Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Their results show that these contaminants not only originate from local human activities but also increase in concentration from marine invertebrates to fish, seabirds, and ultimately to polar bears.
The study examined 134 samples representing multiple trophic levels, from pelagic amphipods and annelids to crabs, fish, glaucous gulls, and a polar bear. Researchers detected 32 bisphenol analogues and found clear evidence of bioaccumulation and trophic magnification. The bisphenol compound BPPH exhibited the highest trophic magnification factor (TMF = 2.3), while total bisphenol concentrations in polar bear organs reached up to 1396 ng g⁻¹ wet weight, far exceeding those in lower-level species. Sediment analysis revealed that BPA and BPF were the most abundant compounds, and biota-sediment accumulation factors confirmed effective transfer from sediments to benthic organisms such as sculpins and annelids. The researchers identified two major local pollution sources: a firefighting training site releasing 2,4,6-tribromophenol and landfill leachate containing bisphenol C (BPC). These findings reveal that not only global transport but also local anthropogenic activities are major contributors to Arctic chemical contamination. The results provide the first comprehensive dataset showing that BPs behave like classical persistent pollutants in Arctic ecosystems.
“People often view the Arctic as pristine and isolated, but our findings show it is not immune to modern chemical pollution,” said Professor Zi-Feng Zhang, corresponding author of the study. “What's striking is that these BPs are not just present—they are magnifying through the food web all the way to polar bears. This means local emissions, such as from firefighting foams and landfills, can have far-reaching ecological impacts. Future management must consider both imported and locally generated pollutants.”
This research underscores the urgent need to integrate local emission control with global monitoring of emerging pollutants. Since BPs can mimic hormones and affect wildlife reproduction and metabolism, their trophic magnification in Arctic species raises new concerns for food safety and ecological resilience. The findings call for stricter waste management at Arctic settlements, improved alternatives to bisphenol-based materials, and inclusion of BPs in long-term Arctic monitoring frameworks. Future studies will refine isotopic baselines for trophic-level assessment and evaluate the combined effects of BPs and other coexisting contaminants under changing polar environments.
###
References
DOI
Original Source URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2025.100627
Funding information
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.52321005) and Provincial Key Research and Development Program of Heilongjiang (No. 2023ZX02C04). This study was also partially supported by the open project of the National Engineering Research Center for Safe Disposal and Resources Recovery of Sludge (No. Z2024B003). We thank the Research Council of Norway (RCN) for funding the project No. 268258 “Reducing the impact of fluorinated compounds on the environment and human health – PFOslo”.
About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology
Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 14.3, according to the Journal Citation ReportsTM 2024.
Journal
Environmental Science and Ecotechnology
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Evidence for local sources and trophic biomagnification of bisphenols in the Arctic
Article Publication Date
29-Oct-2025
No comments:
Post a Comment