Joint Nordic Effort for Biodiversity

Following years of negotiations, including delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada. The GBF sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Yet the framework’s implementation and effect are dependent on national and regional execution with civil society organisations instrumental in ensuring this.

Joint Nordic Effort for Biodiversity

Civil society organisations are drivers of ambition in international agreements and instil accountability for governments to follow up on their commitments. They are also key actors in the implementation of the agreements themselves. “Joint Nordic Effort for Biodiversity” is a collaborative project led by the Norwegian Forum for Development and Environment (ForUM), alongside CONCORD Sweden and The Danish 92 Group – Forum for Sustainable Development. The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Working Group for Biodiversity (NBM).

The purpose of the project is to catalyse biodiversity action, advance the implementation of the GBF within the Nordic region and to strengthen Nordic civil society’s impact on the negotiations in the CBD, including Nordic governments’ positions.

Context of this document

By harnessing the expertise of Nordic CSOs across various thematic areas, we have developed policy recommendations on GBF implementation to the Nordic governments, gathered in this publication.

The policy recommendations should be considered as a whole. Several targets reflect the recommendations, but we have made an effort to avoid repetition. Some issues are cross cutting or do not belong under one specific target, such as the terminology for Indigenous Peoples or the role of citizens in the framework and implementation efforts.

The publication is the result of a wide range of civil society organisations with varying expertise providing input across focus areas, perspectives and political views. Hence, the policy recommendations in this publication are not the primary positions and prioritised messages of all of the organisations that have contributed or are supporting the publication but rather a compilation of proposals. The proposals have been adjusted to fit the Nordic context, and many of the organisations will have more specific suggestions for their own governments. In this context, the proposals for national implementation are recommendations for the implementation in the Nordic countries, with the preconditions that entails. Hence, they should not be read as general recommendations for all national action plans.

The project has been coordinated by CONCORD Sweden, ForUM Norway and The Danish 92 Group.

The following organizations have contributed to the report: