Canada’s Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has said that there has been agreement on one of Canada’s main goals at the ongoing international conference in Montreal aimed at protecting the world’s declining biodiversity.
Guilbeault said that more than 190 nations at the COP15 meeting have agreed that Indigenous people must be fully consulted on conservation moves and play a role in how those decisions are made.
At the meeting, delegates also agreed that women should have equitable access and benefits from the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, albeit the agreements have not yet been formally adopted by the conference.
The plan for Indigenous involvement checks off one of the items that Canada listed as a priority coming into the meetings and Guilbeault acknowledged on Thursday that negotiations, which began last weekend before the conference officially opened, aren’t advancing as fast as he would like.
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“It’s progressing, it’s rarely progressing fast enough for my taste, but things are moving forward,” Guilbeault was quoted as saying. “I remain very optimistic.”
Other major goals include a commitment to preserving 30 per cent of the world’s land and water by 2030 and halting the decline of ecosystems around the globe.
Delegates have also discussed the role that the private sector can play in conserving biodiversity, including how current industrial and agricultural subsidies degrade environmental values.
Additionally, the conference created a small city within Montreal, with 17,000 delegates and about 900 accredited journalists and many off-site events are also being held.
Advocates at the meeting which lasts till December 19 hope that the results of various agreements will be equivalent to the one reached in Paris in 2015, which established hard targets for countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Story was adapted from National Observer.
