Media Release| Researchers call for the Convention on Biological Diversity to focus on agricultural landscapes to aid recovery from COVID-19

Nairobi, Kenya, 14 August 2020 — Researchers are urging the delegates of the 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to ensure that the post-2020 global biodiversity framework is a successful tool for building biodiverse, inclusive, resilient and safe food systems for all. 

Writing in Environmental Research Letters, a team of researchers from some of the world’s most respected research and development organizations — World Agroforestry (ICRAF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza, Switzerland’s Federal Office for Agriculture, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Indian School of Business — argue that COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerability of our economies to shocks, has laid bare deep inequalities in our societies that threaten to derail the Sustainable Development Goals and that a key to addressing these vulnerabilities is ensuring that the world’s agricultural systems operate within a framework of enhancing biodiversity.

‘Governments around the world are looking for recovery options that deliver new jobs and businesses,’ says Anja Gassner, lead author of the study and coordinator of the Trees on Farms for Biodiversity project. ‘Few sectors link job creation so closely to sustainable green production as the food sector. It is the largest source of employment in many countries in the global South. At the same time, cities depend upon imported food that is produced in far-away countries and shipped around the world. The trillions of dollars to be invested in recovery from COVID-19 offers an unprecedented opportunity for a clean, green and just transition to a more biodiversity-friendly agricultural and food system.’