Season III Episode 6 (Part 1) - Reparations for climate and biodiversity loss: Deep dive into challenges and solutions

In this episode of Future Perfect | Futures Antérieur, hosts Liliane Umubyeyi and Hélène Himmer welcome Meghna Abraham, an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social and cultural rights, to discuss the biodiversity crisis, its causes and possible solutions. Meghna explains that biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with up to one million species at risk. This threatens the resilience of ecosystems and their ability to mitigate climate change. The main drivers of this crisis are land-use change, deforestation and extractive industries, largely fuelled by overconsumption in high-income countries, which consume six times more resources than low-income countries.

It highlights how colonial legacies and trade policies continue to exploit the Global South, perpetuating economic inequalities and reinforcing destructive agricultural and industrial models. Despite growing awareness, international frameworks favour market-based solutions such as 'bio-credits', which allow companies to offset environmental damage rather than stop harmful practices. Meghna argues that true accountability requires a justice-based approach, including legal responsibility, reparations and stronger protections for indigenous and most affected communities.

Meghna Abraham calls on civil society to challenge corporate control of biodiversity policy and advocate for a fundamental shift in global economic structures. The conversation underscores the need to shift the narrative around biodiversity, reframing it as a justice issue rather than an environmental concern, and demanding change that prioritises conservation, equity and sustainability. 

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Meghna Abraham is an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social and cultural rights. She has led campaigns, investigations, and policy development to reform unjust economic policies and models and worked with communities for over two decades to challenge the negative impacts of these policies and models on their lives. She currently advises foundations and NGOs on strategic and policy issues and is also focusing on reparations for harms arising from the climate and biodiversity crises.

She was formerly the Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). Prior to joining CESR, she was employed by Amnesty International, including as the Director of Global Issues, Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Senior Researcher on Corporate Crimes. Meghna has also worked at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, International Service for Human Rights, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, World Organisation Against Torture, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, and Centre for Child and the Law at the National Law School. She has been an expert consultant for various NGOs and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Meghna is the Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Charter Limited, a member of the Advisory Council of the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, and a Fellow of the Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She is a qualified Indian lawyer who holds a BA LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and BCL and MPhil in Law degrees from the University of Oxford.

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Transcript

 Hello, welcome to Future Perfect, Futur Antérieur, African Futures Lab podcast, where we feature the work of individuals and organizations pursuing racial justice for historical and contemporary harms. My name is Liliane Umubyeyi. My name is Hélène Himer. At a conference in Munich last week, We are mid September 2024.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced her initiative aimed at rewarding and compensating individuals and communities that play a role in the conservation and stewardship of natural resources, including soil, water, and air. The proposed compensation would take the form of natural credits.

In this case, a company that uses a significant amount of water could offset its impact by compensating local communities for their efforts to restore the ecosystem. This initiative reveals an unfortunate trend among many policy makers to favor. Marker based solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis to help us understand the stakes of this biodiversity crisis and the current political solutions.

We have the pleasure and honor to have as a guest, Meghna Abraham. Hi, Meghna. I'm going to introduce you very quickly before we jump into the topic. Meghna, you're an international human rights lawyer and an expert on economic, social and cultural rights. You have led multiple campaigns, investigations, and policy development to reform unjust economic policies and work with communities for over two decades to challenge their negative impacts.

Over the last few years, you have also focused on the role of these policies in driving the climate and biodiversity crisis. You are the former executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights. And prior to joining CSR, you work for Amnesty International through many roles as the Director of Global Issues, Head of Economic and Social and Cultural Rights, and Senior Researcher on Corporate Crimes.

So thank you so much for being with us. Can you help us understand what do we mean by biodiversity loss and why is it such a critical issue for both the ecosystems and human societies? Thank you very much, Lillian and Helen. Thank you for inviting me onto this podcast, which is really exciting. I mean, at its simplest, basically, I'm not a scientist.

I'm a lawyer. So of course you should take all my descriptions of scientific things with a pinch of salt, but the conventional biological diversity defines biological diversity as the variability amongst living organisms from all sources. So whether on land, whether in water, whether in all ecosystems, I think this is the key aspect.

Of biological diversity, which is shortened to biodiversity. It is that variety of species and the diversity that we have, and we haven't, I think, for many of us, it's a newer area compared to the area of climate, which is much more, I think, better known and more talked about for longer. But biodiversity is almost gone now, I think many UN agencies and others are trying to talk about it as a sort of secondary, you know, it's the second part, the second side of the story.

When we talk about climate and nature and what's required, because this diversity is so key on our planet. It essentially creates the resilience for the planet and the ability to support life on the planet. So it's a critical issue and we are now experiencing biodiversity loss at a pace which is unprecedented in human history.

I think you may have heard there are some books and topics. On this, , you know, not writing on the subject that people now say is fantasy that we may be on the verge of, or we may be actually undergoing the sixth mass extinction event in history. And that is basically the pace at which we are now, losing or species going extinct is something that has not been seen before.

So that in 2019, for example, there was a major report by it, it shortened the abbreviation to IPBES. It's highlighted that now up to a million species are at risk of extinction. It is enormous in terms of the risks. And the loss of biodiversity. Affects the resilience of the Earth's ecosystem, but particularly it affects also actually the effect of the Earth to adapt to climate impact.

So it is the other side of what we're seeing on climate. So rainforests and oceans, as an example, are natural carbon sinks. That absorbed greenhouse gas emissions. So in fact, as emissions go up, the ability of these systems to try and mitigate the impacts becomes very important. And I think the second part of your questions.

I mean, all of us are dependent on this level of life as it's called. But of course, as we know, and I think we will dive into that deeper, the impacts are felt more by communities who are, who are closer to and more reliant on nature. So when we look around the world, as the estimates at the moment are from forest groups, is that more than a billion people rely on forests directly for their livelihoods.

So changes in ecosystems that impact forests will have a direct consequence on many, many groups, some of whom are not even necessarily in the formal economy. Women, for example, who are just relying on the forest to collect food. to collect firewood, to collect medicines, you know, these people are people who are already being impacted and will be impacted very, very badly by this in pure economic terms.

And I don't like those terms. So we'll get into that a bit later. I think there's a danger to this, but there are estimates that over half of global GDP is actually directly dependent on nature. Thank you, Meghna. When I listened to you, what came to my mind was Why did we wait so long for addressing such issues?

Why did we arrive at such a critical situation regarding our species, ecosystems, institutions that we didn't take action before? And, I don't know if you can answer this question, but, we can see a bit that the international frameworks are moving. You started to say that the United Nations, , are taking, , agencies are taking action on that now, but why didn't we take this, this topic seriously before.

And then I have to say, I must also personally take responsibility and my own love, because I also feel it's something I came to later in my career. And now I feel embarrassed because as a human rights lawyer, I have worked extensively, you know, over 20, I don't know, like I'm kind of scared, probably 25 year career.

I have worked. time and time again on issues of extractive industries, on agribusinesses, on displacement of people because of large projects, which were going to have massive impacts on that. And of course, as a human rights lawyer, especially one who works for the economic, social, and cultural rights, I tried to use all the frameworks that we had at our disposal in international law, in the case that we could, but we actually rarely.

Neither me or the organizations that I worked with, we rarely looked at the biodiversity frameworks. I think it's partly because of this, and this is the sad part of the story. If this framework, the conventional biological diversity has been around as long as the agreements on climate. They both come out of the 1992 major conference on environment.

So it's not new, but I think it is less well known. I think in part, because I think we've had lesser understanding. of the impacts of biodiversity on people. I think that was one. Second, I'm afraid, I think it is also partly, so I think we didn't have the frame. I've worked, in my career, at different points with indigenous groups who've been opposing mining and other projects.

And they have very much always talked about these issues in, in those terms, because if you say to an indigenous group, and I did, I had this experience of working very strongly, investigating and campaigning on an indigenous group in India that was going to be displaced. I'm going to be very badly affected by a mining project and they've always said, well, you can't move us.

You can't just give us another forest because this whole ecosystem is so integral to our identity and to our survival, right? So that is essentially, they are talking about biodiversity, but I don't think we had the framing. I've also, and this is just my personal reflection, I would very much bow to others who've been working in this space for longer.

I think part of the challenge in this space has also been the people who've been working in this. There are a lot of movements who have focused on this issue, people, you know, indigenous movements, people working on food sovereignty, forest rights, and other coalitions, but less NGOs. And I think that may be part of the challenge.

I mean, there have always been conservation NGOs in this space, the large conservation groups, but as we will no doubt discuss, it's good and they do good work, but they also bring certain challenges in terms of approaches where the focus is sometimes on protection of nature for its own sake. And not so much the link between nature and people.

So yeah, I mean, that's a very long answer with reflections, but I'd say it's that link between nature and people that has been ignored. And there's a lot of silos, as you know, right across these spaces. I mean, the more I do this work, the crazier I find that we don't have holistic campaigns that link nature and biodiversity.

Thank you so much, Meghna, for taking a part of the responsibility in this awareness of biodiversity issues. Maybe we went, in your explanation, you went a bit too fast. Can we take a step back and can you help us understand, like, who is responsible for these losses and of these damages. We all have a part of the responsibility, but I'm sure that it's unequal in terms of companies, in terms of states, in terms of communities.

You're also mentioning how indigenous groups have been preserving this ecosystem, but who owns the responsibility and how can we better understand the distribution among these different actors? When we are talking about biodiversity losses, the sort of largest contributing factor to biodiversity loss is just change in land use as land changes patterns of land.

Usage change, and especially as, as land is more and more taken over for, for commercial activity in particular. So that's kind of the, simplest answer you'll get. Of course, now biodiversity is also impacted by things like climate change, and the impacts that are coming from climate are impacting biodiversity.

But if we take a step back, which I absolutely agree is, it's very important in this, when we begin to look at responsibility. What is driving this kind of biodiversity loss? First and foremost, I think we have to be clear. It is consumption and there we have to break it up because it is true that we are not all equally consuming or contributing to biodiversity loss.

The United Nations Environment Programme produces a report periodically which is called the Global Resources Outlook and there's a latest report in 2024. So high income countries use six times more materials. And this is everything from what we call biomass or crops and other natural materials, fossil fuels, metals, and non metallic minerals per capita.

So they use six times more resources per capita and are responsible 10 times more for climate impacts per capita. So roughly, I would have to check the percentages, but let's say about 16%. The world's population is responsible for a huge, huge percentage of the consumption that drives biodiversity loss.

Um, and I think this is, is very important and, and very integral to what is happening. And it's important also to say that despite all the commitments and the negotiations and the rhetoric at the international level, the latest report shows that this usage has remained relatively constant since 2000. So it hasn't decreased.

I think that's very, very important. And then obviously, I think, and this is very interesting, UNEP itself acknowledges trade, international trade reinforces this inequality as high income countries displace the environmental impacts to other countries when they're importing resources and materials. So the environmental impact is happening elsewhere as the materials come in.

So agriculture and forestry account for 90 percent of total land use related biodiversity loss. So I think that is a key part of the equation. And then similarly, if we sort of try and get in context extraction and processing of fossil fuels, metals and minerals accounts for about 35 percent of global emissions, right?

So this is the key part of the story. If we start there, the current model of how natural resources are used to deliver economic growth and development is driving. What UNEP calls the triple planetary crisis. So that's climate crisis, biodiversity, loss, and pollution. And in terms of the scale of what is driving this, there's a lot of money that is going into this model.

So again, I think the latest estimates are something like 7 trillion per year is invested in activities that have a directly negative impact on nature. And out of that government subsidies alone to four sectors, agriculture, fossil fuel, fishery. And forestry is 1.7 trillion in 2022. So, you know, it's very clear what is driving this.

But if we sort of take a further step away from this trade, I just want to pick that up, because I think that's very important for many of the groups, particularly, groups and movements in Africa who are campaigning in this. Trade and commodities is a key part of this equation, especially the rules that we look at agriculture, the WTO agreement on agriculture.

Which essentially set up the system which protected agricultural subsidies in the U. S. and in Europe while requiring market openness in developing countries. So I think we've seen that very recently as the pandemic, the food crisis. We are seeing essentially developing countries. Global South countries are very vulnerable to variations and commodity prices, very reliant on cheap imported food.

And this has gone hand in hand with actually increased corporate concentration in agribusinesses, which control every aspect of that market from seeds to pesticides, to the actual trade in whatever commodity that exists. So it's a complex story of what is driving it, but it is, I think, We cannot shy away from unpacking the responsibility of governments and of multilateral institutions who are driving this system.

I just want to bring up, especially because I think in the context of the work that you're doing and many partners are doing, we can start here. But this is a story that dates back to colonization. It's a pattern that we have seen since then. So as we know, colonization, if I involve a plunder of resources from all the colonies, forests, minerals, all of the natural resources, it also involves certain other aspects, it involves a destruction of local ecosystems.

So colonial powers basically stopped very often traditional agriculture and land use forest protection methods in countries. Of course, this went hand in hand with enslavement of local populations, and shifting, in fact, the pattern of agriculture in particular, away from whatever was the traditional agriculture pattern that was often more sustainable to cash crops for exports that were for the western market as you know.

So monocultures in particular and monocultures are very destructive of biodiversity. You can think of plenty of examples that went hand in hand with the reliance on use of slavery or indentured labor or other cheap labor. In that context we have sugar plantations as an example in the Caribbean, tea plantations in India, cocoa in West Africa. These are all examples of patterns that were set. So what we saw is a diverse agricultural system replaced with monoculture, which is very harmful. Biodiversity is greatly impacted by this. Forests are cleared in many countries. And what it left was also a certain political economic model where these countries now have shifted the way they are working. They've become very reliant on this form of, particularly monoculture or certain kinds of cash crops for export. And invariably this is taking up most of the farmland in these countries and countries start also importing food because actually what they're growing is being exported.

So it's a very, very bad pattern. And of course this pattern has been maintained in many countries post independence. in the 1960s. And of course, there's also responsibility on our governments, the sort of post colonial governments for this, but we have to acknowledge that it was quite hard to shift these patterns with the context in which governments came in.

And of course, that trade, international trade and international trade rules have rarely been controlled. By developing countries, and that's actually been a big battleground. So this is a model that was set up, and that model, I think, if we think about it, has played out time and time again in different forms.

It was also a company, and that's the last point I'll make on that, by a fortress conservation model, which we've seen, which we are still seeing now, in fact, if we come back to the President of the European Union and Commission, her views, it's a fortress conservation model where we see this is what happened in colonial times.

Protected areas were demarcated, people were displaced off those protected areas, and it was all based on this idea that actually the colonial powers had superior knowledge over the natives. They knew much better than people who had lived on that land, how it should be protected. And often they shut down, you know, the, whatever was the native indigenous or other forms of maintaining those lands.

And we saw in fact, a very regressive infrastructure of laws around forests, land use, land titling that has come in from those times, that has often been maintained in most of our countries. This is interesting because if you look at the literature that we have now, the scientific literature shows us that, for instance, I think there's a report from the World Resources Institute.

Amazonian forests that have been managed by indigenous peoples that have stayed in a way true to what was the traditional models are still carbon sinks, but those that are outside indigenous control in the Amazon have become in fact carbon sources because of the level of deforestation that's happening.

So that's a very long answer of the factors, but I think we can unpack in this, the responsibility of governments, the responsibility of companies. The responsibility of various international institutions who have created these systems that have basically caused the biodiversity.

Thank you for showing the ways in which these colonial patterns. It's a legacy of colonialism. So I think it's a bit frightening because we don't know where to start, but thank you for showing us this implication of responsibility. Yes, thank you, Meghna, for pointing out the responsibility, pointing to the role of international trade rules in this biodiversity loss.

This leads us to the other question. Why and how do you think frameworks around the right to a remedy and reparations could apply to this area of biodiversity loss? And are there gaps within international law that need to be addressed? Thank you very much, Helene. That's a great question. It is tough, I know, even in light of what we've just discussed, to talk about accountability.

Some of the context here where we're talking about accountability, which is what I think a remedy and reparations framework brings us, it makes us think about responsibility. I think the framework that we need to bring to bear is the framework that we have used time and time again in human rights law, in international law.

It is the right to remedy and reparations with all its components. And we can go through that. Why is it important in this context? I think sometimes the chains are difficult. Sometimes the chains are simpler. So let's talk about, for example, biodiversity losses that are caused by extractive companies. Large agribusinesses, mining companies. So that's a very straightforward contemporary reparations issue. We don't see much of an emphasis on that. We don't see a real emphasis on accountability, on responsibility, on reparations being brought in even in something where that causation is crystal clear.

There are some positive initiatives, of course, and many attempts by communities to do that. But overall, That rhetoric, that sort of narrative and framing of responsibility is something that isn't getting much emphasis in this space. It then of course is more complex when we begin to look at things like consumption in the global north driving biodiversity, because that is a more complex framework that we need to work through.

This whole area is very complicated because we don't really have the same kind of baselines. For the biodiversity that we have for climate, it's very difficult to say exactly what here is, you know, what existed, what has changed. There are attempts to get that, but it is difficult. When we talk about responsibility for consumption, this requires unpacking, but I still think it is very, very important that we bring this framework in because otherwise the danger of coming at it similarly to climate, when we come at it purely as a technical issue, and you let me say all of humanity is under threat.

Yes, all of humanity is under threat, but this is not a problem that was created by all of humanity. We have to acknowledge in a sort of way that is constructive that this is a problem that was created where certain people have benefited a lot more from the actions that have created this problem. And equally, certain people now who are really particularly found in the global South, who are marginalized communities, are also already bearing the consequences a lot more for something that they absolutely did not create.

If we start with that framing, it is important, I think, that we begin to talk about accountability. We begin to talk about remedy and reparations in all its forms, which I think the framework of reparations of restitution, compensation, satisfaction, Guarantees of non repetition does apply to this context.

However, I do think we need more work that has to be done by human rights bodies and lawyers to think about what is full and effective reparation in this context, especially when we acknowledge that there is an intrinsic value to biodiversity. And when it's lost, it is very, very difficult to be talking and to be thinking through how do we repair this in this context.

On the positive side of the question of gaps, human rights bodies have begun to look more into this issue. So some treaty bodies have picked this up. That's been picked up a bit in the Universal Periodic Review and the Special Rapporteur on Environment. Both the Special Rapporteurs have, the last one and the current one, have done two reports, one on biodiversity and one on biosphere, I think it's fair to say that this is sort of beginning work, we're just looking at, very important work that's beginning to look at the consequences, but we require a much, deeper focus from different actors coming together to look at this framework and to think through really going beyond just the consequences of biodiversity loss to, that more complex aspect of causation and the impact of both historical as well as ongoing patterns of behavior, how can we look at that from a responsibility framework?

Thank you, Meghna. I just want to come back to one of the issues that you mentioned. You said that even if there is a clear causality, we don't hear about the role of these extractive industries. I have the impression that somehow when we talk about reparations, we're shifting the debate around the issue of justice.

But at the same time, when you look at the words that Ursula von der Leyen was using, it was almost about justice. How do we talk about justice in terms of, in regard to European farmers? But the solution was more like a market based solution. So how do we make sure that we bring this dimension of justice, but at the same time, the solutions that we think are the right ones are not diverted from their purpose?

I think the challenge as I see it, and I would say the other people who spent more time thinking and working about on this than I have, and they might have, you know, I may be missing some obvious issues here, but part of the challenge that I'm encountering when I'm looking at this is we have a lot of cases being brought against extractive companies for the harm.

They are causing. I don't think many of them, however, are going deep enough into the biodiversity loss aspect. There is an interesting exception to that. There's actually a case that's recently been filed in Brazil against people responsible for deforestation, which is raising exactly these kinds of issues.

So it's going to be very exciting to see how that progresses, but largely it's not done. And I think it's partly because of the framework that we have on conservation. is not oriented towards capturing these kinds of larger harm. So if you look at, a lot of the conservation laws that exist, which as I said, unfortunately do originate from a fortress conservation model, they are very often going after that poacher, the sort of individual who has engaged in wildlife crimes or other kinds of behavior, and I'm not saying it's not important that that is addressed, but it is not really designed to go after the companies who are benefiting from large scale, large scale sort of patterns of extraction of particular resources, because that kind of conduct is unfortunately often a problem.

Okay. It's often unfortunately been agreed with the government in some cases, but also that responsibility for the harms caused have not been properly captured or addressed in domestic laws. I would say a sort of tentative view that I have on that particular issue. And I think there's a lot more work that could be done in that space to be capturing that and to be going for the larger actors who are benefiting from biodiversity loss instead of staying at the level of the individuals.

Who may be part of the system. So I think that's the first on justice I mean, I think this is really the key issue, on the table. So there is, I mean, maybe we just need to get into what is being proposed there by the president of the European Union. There is a notion that is being really brought about now, which is called natural capital, the natural capital approach.

It is based on an idea roughly that if we put an economic value on nature, it will make it easier to protect it. So we stay in fact, then in a sort of market based logic to some extent. And we say, if we put a value on nature, it makes it possible then to in fact, look, you don't see nature as limitless, which has been part of the problem and you say to companies and others and all other actors, well, actually this is the value of of whatever you are harming and that has to be factored into decision making and managed, I do understand. I think in fact, some activists, some leading thinkers in the space also support this view and it's tempting. It's tempting, right? Because it feels like we're filling a gap, but overall, I think there is a massive challenge with it because it is trying to put in fact, nature in this economic model.

Which, yes, it could be helpful, partly, when we're talking about compensation, et cetera. But unfortunately, what it's really opened up the door to more is financialization of nature. So instead of saying, oh, well, actually, here's the value of nature and it can't be, it's so high that it shouldn't be touched, which is the value, which is say the viewpoint or the worldview of say an indigenous group who says, well, this is so intrinsic to our survival.

You can't put a value on it. You can't say this is the dollar value of this mountain to me, because it is integral to my identity. We do get to the sort of dollar value and that has opened the door to offsetting. That's exactly what she's talking about, which is you say, I will end up with biodiversity, it's called no net loss.

If I harm an agribusiness, let's say I'm harming a forest, I don't know, let's say in Nigeria, but I will make up for that by trying to support an activity which will protect biodiversity in the Congo. In the overall net, we don't have a loss. That is the concept. And all the more so in terms of what she's talking about.

So a farmer in Europe, you know, there's some kind of harm caused there, but can try and offset that behavior by supporting protection of biodiversity elsewhere. There are many obvious problems with this to start with. First of all, it's based on frankly, quite dodgy science. There isn't a scientific basis to back this up.

I won't get into a lot of detail, but essentially there's an idea of this: Let's say you protect key forest in the Congo and you make sure it's not going to be cut and then there's a value put to the carbon savings we have from that, essentially, right? Is that actually additional? That's the first question.

I think the value of that sort of forest may have already been factored in to the models that exist in terms of looking at emissions. And it's even more complex when we move away from carbon to the biodiversity value of that forest, right? What it means for that particular ecosystem. So that's first, how do we ensure there's no leakage basically, but the negative impacts are just actually being transferred elsewhere and permanent.

So there's a lot of concerns about science. There's a lot of concerns about the model itself, which is extremely financialized. So a lot of people are making money off this. That's the idea behind it. And that's going to help apparently fund biodiversity.

But at a deeper level, it is a replica of that old colonial model, where essentially, people in the global north can continue, or large companies can continue to consume, and can continue to harm the environment. And that will be balanced out by actually locking up land largely in the global south, which per se is problematic.

Why should people in the global south have to do things which make up for consumption in the global north? But of course, it also involves lots of risks for communities who rely on that land. None of this land is pristine virgin land that's sitting somewhere. We know that communities all over the world rely on that land, even if that nature and that relationship is not legally recognized.

So what we're seeing now is again, the risks of people being displaced off the land or a lot of projects being brought in. And there's a lot of evidence on this by work that's been done by by the Center of Multinational Research, many others has done an excellent report recently looking at all the offsets that are registered in different databases and showing how much land, particularly in Africa, is being brought under these projects and showing the concerns of many of these offsetting projects.

I think fundamentally, we have to decide -  and this is where I think the reparations approach comes in. Yes, there is definitely a need to invest more in the protection of nature. But should it be contingent on an offset where you say the only way we can protect this nature is if it is going to be a trade off for allowing certain harmful behavior to continue.

I think that is the bigger problem that needs to be questioned. And from a justice perspective, it's the exact opposite of what we'd like to achieve. Because in fact, many of the companies who have caused the original harm are now going to benefit from these offsetting schemes with absolutely very little responsibility or change, just paying a little bit of money to somebody who is then, you know, well, there's a lot of people making, it's all a little bit of money.

There's a lot of money on the table, but technically that's the proposition. The knowledge is free and then buy that the message is free, and that the knowledge is free and that the message is free. Thank you, Meghna, for those comments. The thing of always having a market approach on this and also giving value to nature is really, I think, tricky because it doesn't stop the harms in the way that, you took the example of Nigeria and Congo.

Okay. First question is: Why will a forest in Congo have more value than a forest in Nigeria? Second question is the community living in Nigeria that sees forests disappear. How we deal with the consequences that can be for them a lot of consequences until food insecurities are this kind of thing. And, I really, it was really interesting that you bring this, this question of, financialization and that, we have the impression that each problem that the planet is facing, the response is always a market approach.

And that's really the most disappointing thing, from the people governing, but, just had those comments. Thanks very much. And that's absolutely right. And I think that is the problem of this because when these approaches are being suggested, they are not looking at the actual impacts on people in whichever place we're looking at as well as the overall benefits of it even from a scientific perspective Even if you're willing to completely ignore the issues of equity, but definitely not the issue of equity. This is what is very much missing when we come at it from this purely, scientific issue.

It's an abstract issue, right? We're talking about protection of biodiversity, not protection of biodiversity in a way that makes sure that the Agoni* in Nigeria are not further impacted by all the cumulative impacts of pollution. So that oil can continue to be produced.

And a lot of people can make money off the process. And this is the challenge of it. As I said, I do have sympathy for those who have tried to push this thinking it'll help. But yes, I think fundamentally, this is the big question on the table. We have to ask, and I think this is for me what's very interesting, that the UNEP report actually opened this up.

Is there a willingness to look at that economic model itself which is driving all of these problems? Or do we keep trying to make tiny fixes, hoping it'd be put in a little bit of procedural safeguards? So in the context of the negotiations that happened on the Convention on Biological Diversity, there was a new framework adopted, which is called the Kunming Montreal Framework, which now sets out the targets for protection of biodiversity.

It's still operating very much within this idea. It's not really looking at responsibility. It is not looking at really the questions of equity and justice. And so we end up with this kind of distorted system, but yes, we can maybe build in a bit more protection and some procedural safeguards for indigenous people's human rights, but are we actually really getting to the heart of what is the problem?

And this is where, of course in my mind, reparations, not in a narrow sense, but transformative reparations, if we can shift that, it has something very valuable to offer. Because if we are really saying we want cessation of these violations. We need a big shift in the system. We need to look at trade rules.

We need to look at the laws that actually make large companies that are sourcing beef through deforestation in the Amazon accountable. We need to look at systems of financing because in contrast to I mean, climate is bad enough, but biodiversity financing is an absolute joke.

There aren't even the same targets. Developing countries try to fight for a target of 100 billion, which is the now discarded target for biodiversity, and that was pushed back on completely and not accepted. So the big structural factors need to come onto the table. Thank you, Meghna. Thank you so much for this clarification.

This leads us to the next question. So while there had been a focus on reparation for the climate crisis and not that much on biodiversity, you already pointed that at the beginning of our discussion, and this is the case of the international endeavor. So how would you see this taken forward and how do you see global campaigns for reparations for harm arising from the climate and biodiversity crisis and how civil society can also contribute to addressing biodiversity loss and advocate for policy change?

I like this question because it lets me put my wish list out to the world. I suppose though, I don't know if that wish list will be granted. We've already touched on some of those points. I think for me, what is really important about reparations,as we all know in our work, there's a constant attempt to make reparations look like they're a vindictive measure, right?

It's a measure of just saying, oh, you're trying to hold someone accountable, also to reduce it down to just some compensation. You want to be punitive. You want to get some money from someone. Well, we know that actually the power of reparations for anyone who's really worked at a community level or in a case, it is a very powerful framework., 

It's a framework of responsibility, which is a framework of acknowledgement of harms, which can be as important as we know for people who are suffering the harms of the violation or the behavior. As much as any practical measures that come out of it. And I think this is what is to me, the sort of biggest, I think could be the biggest, most powerful contribution of a reparations campaign.

It's a narrative shift. It's trying to shift away right now in the biodiversity space. We have a completely co-opted space with a lot of corporate interests - a complete narrative of voluntary approaches, a belief that the money is not there, you know, constant rhetoric of that, a reliance on a mark.

The only hope to get that money is from the market and from greater financialization and the private sector and the market can be our only savior. Unfortunately, even if you put aside the concerns you might have with that at an ideological level. We know that's simply not true. It has never happened.

It has never delivered that on these kinds of systematic issues that the market itself left to itself will deliver the solution. We've tried this. We tried privatization. It's been tried before in the climate space with red plus and forest conservation. This is all things that have been tried and they have failed.

In fact, the problem has gotten worse and worse. So I think for me, it is that honest reckoning that a reparations campaign can give us to really look at the current model, to acknowledge that the current model is failing us all. It is particularly failing and placing burdens on people in the Global South, especially marginalized communities who have not caused the problem, but it is actually failing us all because ultimately the level of biodiversity loss is going to make life on this planet fundamentally under threat.

So it affects us all, but I think we need to move past a very deeply ingrained belief that we, I think we all have, that it isn't possible to change the current system, particularly the economic system, that it's too difficult to do that. The resources are not there. So I think for me, this is perhaps the biggest.

Kind of target and value when we begin to bring reparations language in, we are forcing a conversation, which is an honest conversation about what's going wrong about responsibilities, but in a way that, as I said, can be transformative. I will also say, I think we definitely do need to break the silos that currently exist.

The silos exist for very good reasons amongst NGOs, you know, funding. Everyone's overwhelmed. There's so much happening in different spaces. But the silos are not helping, so, you know, the fact that it's all separate, the negotiations on climate, the negotiations happening around international financial architecture reform, the negotiations around, you know, biodiversity, even the very powerful work that's being done on reparations for colonialism, for slavery, all of these are happening separately, though actually they are all connected issues.

So I think there is a need for much more engagement and conversation across movements of this kind of transformative reparations and what that involves. But I will also say in this space, I do have a very strong belief that the NGOs need to take a secondary role, that we can't be driving this work.

It has to be driven by the movements who have been raising these issues. For 40, 50 years, you know, movements on food sovereignty, people working on forest rights, many indigenous movements, they have been raising these issues for a long time. They were largely ignored. I think the role of NGOs has to be to support that, to support their work, to amplify it, to push it forward.

But I do think in whatever way and language. That is possible within institutional mandates, asking, stop treating it like an abstract issue, a general issue, beginning to ask the question of who's responsible, who is benefiting from everything that's being discussed, the problems and the solutions would help in my view. 

Wow. That's an agenda to become prime minister or president.

I really love the way you talk about this issue of narrative shifting, because I have the impression that, you know, in everyday conversation, this role of the private sector, where the money is going to come from. So we came to see the private sector as the only solutions that are going to help us address the challenges that we face. This needs to change to shape a new narrative around like, these models have led us to a full solution.

We have to shift and create new narratives around justice. I think it's really important and valuable. So in what the work that we're trying to do around climate reparations, and I also love the what you say about like the need the necessity to stop working in silos because we know that the reparations movement or racial justice movement, the climate justice, biodiversity, the justice movements, I mean, everyone has been working in different, taking different roles, and it doesn't help to move the work forward.

And I think it's an invitation. I guess these different worlds come together and I really hope it's something that this type of conversation can support and contribute to. 

Thanks very much, Lillian and I think your podcast is already doing that. So that's a great start to hopefully a larger conversation to happen. 

Meghna for all those insights. And the question about the narrative is really important as Lillian highlighted as well and shifting the narrative. I also remember one guest that we had in the previous podcast, Sineza* who said we need to change the story, but it's more than stories to changing the storyteller. 

And that is really, really true. That's also why hear this topic from the voice and from the interest of the global north. And we have also to change the storytelling to continue this discussion. The next question is to go a bit deeper on what is actually happening, at the global level. 

So what are the current approaches that are being adopted or promoted, within the global mutual context to advance protection of biodiversity, especially in negotiation around the UN convention on biological diversity. Could you explain what these approaches are and in your view, do they address concerns that we already mentioned, earlier around colonial legacies, but also race, gender, class and power?

Thank you. Thank you very much, Hélène. And I would like to acknowledge that my analysis of these issues is informed by the work that others in this field have been doing for a long time, particularly the Third World Network and Lim Li Lin at the Third World Network and Lim Li Ching, but Lim Li Lin is someone I spoke to some years ago when I first began to work on this and she really influenced, I think it helped me see the long term patterns of what was happening there, but essentially, as we've kind of touched upon a little bit.

So the framework that currently looks at sort of the commitments that governments have in terms of protection of biodiversity was negotiated, I think it was just last year, in fact, or year before last, and it's called the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It replaced what was called the Aichi* Targets.

And I think it's very important, first of all, to say that as we've kind of discussed through this podcast, biodiversity is the neglected stepchild in international negotiations, it gets very little of the attention, the attendance, the scrutiny that the climate COPs get. It is really something that more has for years, movements, particularly those working on forest food and indigenous peoples have tended to focus on.

There's been some very good work by some NGOs working with indigenous rights, minority rights. And of course, the conservation group, especially the large ones, are there. But as we will discuss, that's perhaps a little more problematic. During the negotiations of the Kunming Montreal framework, there was a big push from developing countries to actually try and mobilize more money.

To developing countries, there was a proposal for a new dedicated global biodiversity fund and these demands were not met. So at the moment, the target on financial resources is only 20 billion U.S. dollars. For year by 2025 and to at least 30 billion by 2030, which is really very little compared to what is required and what is needed.

And the convention of biological diversity also reflects the key principle coming out of Rio, which was common, but differentiated responsibilities. It's meant to be still at the heart of this treaty. What we've seen is that developed countries have a liking for climate, unfortunately, continue to just shift their responsibilities instead of talking about their responsibility to provide funds, to provide support, technical, and otherwise to developing countries. There's been a big shift to this private sector approach, to this idea that they don't have the money, and really they need blended finance, and they need private sectors.

To come in - there's also a big push to say, well, actually, what money can developing countries realize themselves through domestic risk resource mobilization? And interestingly, at the same time, considering more key biodiversity spots actually exist in developing countries.

So in fact, all the targets and requirements and goals are largely the responsibility of that is largely falling on developing countries. So the targets kind of hold them accountable, but there's very little coming from the developed countries in response. There were some wins in this, which are important, as I said, particularly stronger language on indigenous peoples and their rights, participation, etc.

However, the overall approach that this framework has endorsed is nature based solutions. Which is very much, unfortunately, the sort of ground that is really opening up the role of the private sector and offsets and other things. And in respect of the framework, there is something called the 30 by 30 initiative.

Which is the idea that 30 percent of land and water should be conserved. So, in fact, the idea is that governments are committing to conserving and protecting 30 percent of land and 30 percent of water, which, unfortunately, is opening the door again to more of the fortress conservation approaches in countries.

But also, this is exactly the land that is being conserved and set aside in protected areas, which is then going to be used. And financialized for different upsetting and other projects with all the harms that it brings. So, unfortunately, to come back to your question, I don't think the approaches and what's being put on the table in any way acknowledges and responds and takes responsibility for the colonial legacy, but ongoing kind of colonial approaches that inform the system.

It is absolutely, in my view, quite blind to race, gender, class, and power. And again, I think it's very important. So there's a lot of work that's being done. If you see the Global Forest Alliance, there's the Green Finance Observatory, who've been working on these spaces. Lots of initiatives bringing together people pushing back on this approach, and they're doing fantastic work.

They've all pointed to the problems with these kinds of models and approaches. And from a gender perspective, they're absolutely abysmal. We know that women are the least likely to be recognized for tenure. They're often very, very dependent in most of the contexts. Definitely that's been the case in most of the research I've done with rural communities or with indigenous women, but it is well recognized all over the world, that women rely a lot on these kinds of natural resources that they are able to access, and it isn't formally recognized or legally protected. So when you set up these kinds of schemes, you are in fact very much risking those kinds of aspects. But as we've also discussed, there's a bigger question anyway.

About whether it's just that that is the price of protecting biodiversity and that that price has to be paid by people in developing countries while consumption in the global north continues unchecked. 

Thank you Meghna for explaining how these solutions and approaches are exactly what people call or we call dangerous destruction. It's dangerous for the communities, dangerous for the women, dangerous for the people.

And instead of trying to find just solutions, we're focusing on spending time and energy on solutions that are harmful. That's the sad situation, and I really hope that these conversations will help people, our listeners, understand the necessity to shift these narratives, to think about the new models, the new approaches that are necessary in this context of crisis.

So thank you so much for explaining brilliantly these tough topics, I think, for new topics for our listeners. We were so glad to have you and we're excited to have you also as a co-host in the next episode.

Thanks so much. Meghna. It was a pleasure to have you. 

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inconsistencies or inaccuracies. Please refer to the original audio for full accuracy and context.