Progress towards landmark COP15 pledges now depends on integrating agrifood systems into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.

The 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference, including the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), will be held in Cali, Colombia from 21 October to 1 November 2024.

Agrobiodiversity meets traditional knowledge to fight climate change in Colombia.

In this interview, Kaveh Zahedi, Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), explains that FAO’s advocates for placing agrifood system solutions at the heart of the global efforts to tackle climate change while safeguarding rural livelihoods.

The 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP16) will open in a couple of days in Cali, Colombia and will be the first Conference of the Parties (COP) since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). In the lead up to COP16, the fifth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-5) started today, with the objective to review the preparation of national targets and the alignment of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) with the KMGBF. 

Stay updated with FAO at COP16: Explore events, insights, and more

FAO’s work aligns with Colombia’s priority for COP16 on Biodiversity to Make peace with nature. 

The fifth observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste will highlight the critical need for financing to bolster efforts to reduce food loss and waste, contribute to achieving climate goals, and advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Indonesia and Sao Tome and Principe receive their first designations from FAO along with Austria’s second system.

The open-ended workshop will be held in collaboration with the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On land as in water, there can be no food security without biodiversity: it allows plants and animals to reproduce and grow, adapt to natural and human-induced impacts, resist diseases and parasites, and continue to evolve. Aquatic biodiversity is the basis on which aquaculture can exist and grow sustainably.

Please join us at the launch of AquaGRIS, the world’s first public online database of farmed aquatic species and their wild relatives, developed by FAO in collaboration with countries, scientific experts and stakeholders through a consultative process spanning five years.  Watch the webcast 

Africa's culinary landscape is a rich tapestry of biodiversity and tradition, holding beneath its vibrant surface a treasure trove of forgotten foods.

Besta Pulum cannot contain his excitement about the tablet computer he is holding in his hands. “When I was young, I never saw that kind of computer. Now I’m seeing it; I didn’t sleep [from excitement],” says the community chief, who reckons his age at around 60. 

The First Session of the Ad Hoc Expert Team on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture opened on 2 July 2024. The Expert Team was established by the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2023 to review issues related to biodiversity for food and agriculture (BFA) and advise and make recommendations to the Commission on these matters.

The revised – unedited – draft of the Second Report on Forest Genetic Resources is now out for review. The Second Report builds on the first global assessment, published by FAO in 2014, and analyses the progress made in the implementation of the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Development of Forest Genetic Resources, adopted by the FAO Conference in 2013.

Land holds the past, present and future of humanity. Everything from nutritious food and thriving ecosystems to agricultural heritage and livelihoods rely on healthy and productive land. Yet every year, an average of 100 million hectares of land are degraded through unsustainable agriculture, urbanization and more frequent and prolonged droughts.

FAO celebrates the International Day of Potato 2024 with a special and an high-level event

Regional consultations on the review of the Second Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture were held in Cali, Colombia from 21 to 23 May 2024. FAO National Focal Points for Plant Genetic Resources and National Focal Points to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture from more than 20 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered at the premises of the Alliance Biodiversity International & the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to discuss priorities for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources.

The theme of this year’s International Day for Biodiversity is “Be Part of the Plan” - a rallying call to the public and diverse actors to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, endorsed in December 2022, and also known as The Biodiversity Plan. FAO is an integral part of this plan, as agrifood systems are a powerful channel for readily available and scalable solutions to conserving, restoring and sustainably using biodiversity.