TEDxYerevan COP 17 Salon: The Web That Holds us

 

As Armenia hosts the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, TEDxYerevan will create a public-facing space to translate the global biodiversity agenda into human stories, local meaning, and future-oriented action. COP 17 will be a critical moment for reviewing progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and accelerating implementation toward the 2030 biodiversity targets. Against this backdrop, the TEDxYerevan COP 17 Salon, “The Web That Holds us,” will explore biodiversity not as something distant or separate from people, but as the living system that supports everyday life - food, water, health, culture, livelihoods, cities, technology, finance, and intergenerational justice.

The Salon will bring together International voices, including scientists, Indigenous and local knowledge holders, OPD representatives, youth, innovators, food systems leaders, and biodiversity finance experts. Through short TED-style talks and artistic storytelling, the event will connect key COP 17 themes with the lived realities of people and communities.

The central message of the event is the following: biodiversity is not only about protecting nature; it is about protecting the conditions that make life possible. By placing people, rights, knowledge, and responsibility at the center of the conversation, TEDxYerevan will help make COP 17 more accessible, emotionally resonant, and publicly owned.

 

Proposed TEDxYerevan COP 17 talk architecture

Talk 1

Working title:  The Living Systems Behind Everyday Life

The talk should show that biodiversity is present in our food, water, air, health, medicines, soil, gardens, city trees, bees, markets, agriculture, tourism, and even emotional wellbeing.

Speaker profile:
A scientist-storyteller who can make biodiversity tangible for ordinary people — ideally an Armenian ecologist, urban biodiversity expert, public health/environment expert, or science communicator. The speaker should not sound too technical. They should be able to explain, for example, how the loss of pollinators affects food prices, how soil biodiversity affects agriculture, how forests regulate water, and how biodiversity loss enters daily life quietly before people notice it.

TED-style question:
“What if biodiversity is not nature far away, but the invisible system making breakfast, clean water, medicine, and livable cities possible?”

 

Talk 2

Working title: What Local Knowledge Knows Before Science Measures It

This should ideally include an Indigenous person or a person from an Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities background. If that is not possible within the Armenia/COP 17 speaker pool, the next-best option is someone with deep credibility working with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on biodiversity, traditional knowledge, land stewardship, or rights-based conservation.

Speaker profile option A: Indigenous speaker
An Indigenous leader, knowledge-holder, conservation advocate, or youth representative who can speak personally about biodiversity not as a resource, but as relationship, responsibility, identity, and survival.

Speaker profile option B: Expert on Indigenous knowledge
A researcher or practitioner who has worked directly with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and can speak carefully, respectfully, and without appropriating their voice.

Important framing:
The talk should show that Indigenous and local knowledge systems are often practical, adaptive, place-based systems for managing land, water, forests, seeds, and species over generations.

Possible TED-style question:
“What do communities who live closest to nature understand that global systems are only now beginning to measure?”

 

Talk 3

Working title: Who Gets to Dedcide for Nature?

This can be a OPD-led talk. It should connect biodiversity with accessibility, rights, participation, information, and justice. Under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Target 22 explicitly refers to inclusive, equitable, gender-responsive participation in biodiversity-related decision-making, including persons with disabilities, women and girls, children and youth, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. 

Speaker profile:
An OPD representative who can speak from a rights-based perspective but also make the topic vivid. Ideally someone who can address questions such as: Are biodiversity consultations accessible? Are protected areas accessible? Are emergency, climate, and environmental information systems accessible? Are persons with disabilities seen only as “vulnerable groups,” or as decision-makers, experts, voters, land users, tourists, farmers, educators, and community members?

Strong profile suggestion:
A person with disability or OPD leader with experience in accessibility, public participation, environmental justice, urban planning, or inclusive policy. The speaker should be able to move beyond “include us” and toward “nature decisions are incomplete without us.”

Possible TED-style question:
“If decisions about nature shape everyone’s future, why are some people still not in the room?”

 

Talk 4

Working title: The Generation That Will Live With the Outcome

This can be either a youth representative or a researcher on youth, futures, climate/biodiversity anxiety, education, intergenerational justice, or civic participation. For TEDx, we would lean toward a young speaker, but pair them with strong coaching and evidence. A youth voice is more emotionally compelling during COP 17.

Speaker profile option A: Youth representative
A young Armenian biodiversity/climate advocate, student, young researcher, rural youth, or member of a youth environmental network. Ideally, not just someone who says “young people care,” but someone who can explain what it means to inherit decisions made today.

Speaker profile option B: Research-informed speaker
A scholar or practitioner who works on youth futures, environmental education, eco-anxiety, or intergenerational decision-making.

Possible TED-style question:
“What does it mean to make decisions in 2026 that someone else will still be living with in 2050?”

 

Talk 5

Working title: Can AI Help Nature Recover — Without Replacing Human Responsibility?

The TEDx angle could be: AI is not the hero; it is a tool. The real question is how technology can help people see, measure, protect, and restore nature better, while avoiding extractive, biased, or techno-solutionist approaches.

Better speaker profile:
A conservation technologist, AI-for-nature scientist, biodiversity data expert, restoration entrepreneur, or digital public goods expert who can show concrete examples: satellite monitoring, species identification, illegal logging/fishing alerts, ecosystem mapping, biodiversity credits verification, citizen science, early warning systems, restoration planning, or accessible environmental information.

Even stronger profile:
Someone who works at the intersection of AI + biodiversity data + local/community decision-making. The best speaker would be able to say: “AI can help us detect patterns, but communities, scientists, and policymakers still decide what matters.”

Possible TED-style question:
“What if technology could help us hear nature’s warning signals earlier — and act before loss becomes irreversible?”

 

Talk 6

Working title: Food Systems and Biodiversity: What We Eat is a Biodiversity Decision

Possible speaker: Agnes Kalibata. She has major credibility as a food systems leader: she served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit and was President of AGRA from 2014 to March 2025. 

The talk should connect food systems to biodiversity through seeds, soil, pollinators, agricultural landscapes, smallholder farmers, diets, food security, resilience, and markets. It should avoid becoming only about agriculture productivity. The TEDx framing should make people see that every food system either erodes biodiversity or helps regenerate it.

Speaker profile:
Agnes Kalibata, or another global food systems leader who can connect smallholder livelihoods, agricultural transformation, nutrition, biodiversity, climate adaptation, and youth.

Possible TED-style question:
“What if the future of biodiversity is decided not only in forests and protected areas, but also in farms, kitchens, markets, and school meals?”

 

Talk 7

Working title: Who Pays for Nature and Who Benefits?

This is the finance talk, and it is essential, because COP 17 will be deeply connected to implementation and financing. The biodiversity finance discussion should be made understandable to a public audience: nature is valuable, but our economic systems often treat its destruction as free and its protection as optional.

Speaker profile option A: Biodiversity finance expert
Someone from UNDP BIOFIN, UNEP FI, World Bank, Global Environment Facility, a development bank, or a respected nature-finance platform. They should be able to explain public finance, private finance, subsidies, incentives, biodiversity credits, debt-for-nature swaps, insurance, and local benefit-sharing in simple language.

Speaker profile option B: Economist
A finance-sector/Developmen bank person who can explain how nature risk is becoming financial risk for agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, insurance, water, and national economies.

Possible TED-style question:
“What would change if nature appeared on our balance sheets before it disappeared from our landscapes?”

 

Logo of the event will be developed and uploaded accordingly.