DECEMBER 12, 2024, Windhoek, NAMIBIA. – The IIFB held today a dialogue in the margins of the eleventh session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES-11) on the outcomes of the TRɄA World Summit on Traditional Knowledge related to Biodiversity and on the key results of the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) for Indigenous Peoples and local comunities.
The event was co-organizded with the Indigenous Women Biodiversity Network (IWBN), Nia Tero, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany and GIZ.
Lucy Mulenkei, Co-chair of IIFB, and Onel Masardule, director of the Foundation for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge and member of IIFB, were the main speakers of the event.
They addressed, among other topics, the recommendations made by Indigenous Peoples and local communities to parties of COP 16 after building consensus in the framework of the TRɄA World Summit on Traditional Knowledge related to Biodiversity. These recommendations were:
1) The creation of a permanent subsidiary body on traditional knowledge;
2) The adoption of a new program of work to guide countries’ commitments to respect, preserve and maintain traditional knowledge until 2050; and
3) The recognition of the contribution of traditional knowledge to biodiversity conservation and addressing the impacts of climate change.
Many of the recommendations made in the context of the TRɄA World Summit were achieved at COP 16, marking a milestone in the history of the recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples an local communities. Among those achievements are highlighted the establishement of the Subdidiary Body on Article 8j (SB8j), the adoption of the new Programme of Work on Article 8j (PoW) and the indicators on traditional knowledge. Learn more on the achievements at COP 16 here.
The TRɄA World Summit on Traditional Knowledge related to Biodiversity was held from August 26 to August 29 in Bogota, Colombia. More than 150 representatives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities from Africa, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, the Arctic, Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia and the Pacific participated of the event. Also, State representatives from Australia, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Fiji and Colombia participated were present.
Additionally representatives of organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) participated.
The summit was co-organized by the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB), the Mesa Permanente de Concertación con los Pueblos y Organizaciones Indígenas (MPC), the International Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network (IWBN) and the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as partners.
Learn more about the TRɄA World Summit on Traditional Knowledge related to Biodiversity here.
Access the TRɄA World Summit Executive Report:
English version. Access here.
Spanish version. Access here.
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