THE CONTEXT

CBD COP17 takes place at a critical stage in the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), as countries move from target setting toward implementation, monitoring, and review. As Parties accelerate efforts to achieve the Framework's goals and targets, increasing attention is being given to aligning biodiversity objectives with broader development priorities, including climate action, energy security, and economic diversification.

A key challenge involves the growing legal and illegal trade of wildlife, which are primary drivers of biodiversity loss. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) addresses these threats by aiming to ensure that the harvesting, trade, and use of wild species are legal, sustainable, safe and traceable, ultimately contributing to halting and reversing biodiversity loss and the decline of vulnerable ecosystems. Unsustainable use of wildlife places pressures on the rights and livelihoods of women, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities. At the same time illegal trade driven by transnational organized crime groups often occurs at industrial scale driving many species to extinction, with devastating consequences for people and planet.

The KMGBF establishes clear, actionable targets to manage wildlife extraction and commerce, shifting focus heavily toward accountability and sustainability:

• Target 4 focuses on halting human-induced species extinction, protecting genetic diversity, and managing human-wildlife conflicts.
• Target 5 (Sustainable, Safe, and Legal Trade) mandates that the harvesting and trade of wild species must be sustainable, safe, and legal. It aims to prevent overexploitation, minimize ecosystem impacts, and lower the risk of pathogen spillover (zoonotic diseases) while respecting indigenous customary use.
• Target 9 (Benefits to People from Biodiversity): Focuses on ensuring that the sustainable use of wild species provides social, economic, and environmental benefits to human populations, particularly protecting the livelihoods of local communities who rely on these resources.

As countries seek to balance climate, biodiversity, and development objectives, they face complex governance challenges, including integrating biodiversity considerations into trade policies, ensuring meaningful stakeholder participation, and managing impacts within and across sovereign borders. These challenges are directly relevant to KMGBF implementation.

In this context, CBD COP17 provides a timely platform for governments, UN agencies, international organizations, private sector, civil society, and partners to exchange experiences and explore practical approaches for managing biodiversity related risks and securing innovative financing solutions, whilst also considering opportunities associated with combatting the illegal trade of wildlife and strengthening sustainable and legal wildlife  trade systems.

THE SIDE EVENT

Member States, UN agencies and partners, will convene a side event at CBD COP17 to explore how countries are responding to and enhancing cooperation to address the growing demand for wildlife specimens and related products while advancing biodiversity conservation and sustainable development objectives. This includes opportunities to strengthen partnerships across sectors and at all levels and leverage a range of innovative financing mechanisms and enforcement cooperation frameworks.

The side event will:

• Provide a platform for Member States, UN agencies, international organizations, governments, civil society, and Indigenous Peoples to discuss key challenges, emerging opportunities including new technologies, and policy trade-offs linked to wildlife trade governance, including both legal and illegal trade dimensions, and their implications for biodiversity outcomes.
• Identify opportunities to enhance partnerships that promote greater value creation, inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience for developing countries across wildlife trade value chains and linked conservation efforts, in line with KMGBF Targets 4, 5, and 9, including through strengthened compliance, enforcement, and traceability systems.

• Share country experiences on financing and integrating wildlife considerations and wildlife crimes into national and sectoral policies, planning, operations, and decision-making to advance multiple SDG dividends and improve KMGBF implementation reporting and monitoring frameworks.

​Format:

The in-person side event will consist of a moderated panel discussion followed by an interactive dialogue, with a strong emphasis on sharing country experiences and practical solutions for promoting sustainable wildlife use and trade and combatting illegal wildlife trade. Countries to be invited to speak include Colombia, DRC, Gabon, Kenya, South Africa, and Thailand, among others, and alongside relevant UN agencies and partners.