COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Cali, marked a watershed moment by explicitly including People of African Descent within the scope of Article 8(j). Alongside Indigenous Peoples and local communities, it recognized the centrality of their knowledge systems for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For Maroon (Quilombola), traditional religious (Terreiro), and other Afro-descendant populations in Latin America and the Caribbean, this achievement represents not only historical reparations but also the opening of an institutional pathway for their material contributions, agroecological practices, territorial management, and ancestral wisdom in land and water stewardship to be formally recognized within the international regulatory framework. ​This side event aims to deepen this discussion across three central pillars. First, it will examine how the formal recognition of traditional and Afro-descendant knowledge systems in multilateral forums like the CBD provides political and technical leverage to formulate and strengthen national policies for territorial protection, combating environmental racism, and ensuring environmental and climate justice. Second, it will frame the historic inclusion in Article 8(j) as a starting point rather than a destination, debating the practical challenges of strengthening this participation, including direct funding, technical capacity for multilateral advocacy, and effective mechanisms for free, prior, and informed consent. Third, it will expand the debate beyond symbolic recognition to discuss how to ensure that all communities and populations mentioned in the new institutional arrangement—Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and People of African Descent—have equitable access to the decision-making spaces created by COP16, preventing nominal inclusion from becoming mere rhetoric. ​To achieve this, the event will gather leaders from traditional communities, civil society organizations, and representatives of CBD member states to debate concrete strategies for enhancing and expanding this participation toward the full implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.