- Director Brian O’Donnell said it was time for indigenous people to have their rights upheld.
- "The people who are suffering from the impact of climate change and nature loss are not receiving resources necessary to conserve nature," he said.
Image: FILE
Campaign for Nature has urged stakeholders to include both climate and nature solutions for the most affected individuals in local communities.
In an interview with the Star, the director Brian O’Donnell said it was time for indigenous people to have their rights upheld.
"Climate and nature solutions should be inclusive and equitable. Not forgetting the financial bit, which should get to the people really affected by climate change," O’Donnell said.
"Too often, finance for nature conservation has remained in big cities and not the ones most affected."
In order to engage the community and ensure biodiversity conservation efforts are inclusive and sustainable, O’Donnell noted that the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon during the COP15 in Montreal stated the rights of indigenous people in the local community, adding it would be great if the issues were implemented.
"This is a critical issue for COP28. It is important that any framework that was agreed to has important language, and we need to make sure that there is inclusivity for everyone," he said.
"The people who are suffering from the impact of climate change and nature loss are not receiving resources necessary to conserve nature."
Image: HANDOUT
O’Donnell added that technology has helped in determining the levels of biodiversity by using audio recordings, videos and DNA samples in rivers to determine its levels.
"Satellite images have been used for some time to spot deforestation and technology has really helped us in determining biodiversity, the challenge is the indigenous people are yet to adapt to it," O’Donnell observed.
Ahead of the Climate summit in Dubai, he noted that Finance will be a major discussion as there is a backlog of nature finance and a target has to be met by 2025.
"Climate finance goal must be delivered, we also need to see the commitment that countries will make in matters nature, we can't see the same situation in other areas, Finance is an essential component at the COP28," he noted.
"This will also be the first climate since we had the biodiversity framework."
In matters of international collaborations, O’Donnell said there are no borders in climate matters and nature conservation as there is a need for the impacts to be discussed and intense collaborations to come together for the solutions.
"Our solutions need to be global. If we have the hope for the global solution, we need to find ways to solve the issues as a planet.
"We are going to recommend that nature receives the finance that it requires, for the Paris agreement to be met," O’Donnell said.
He further said that there is a need for more attention towards nature conservation to ensure that the nature finance commitment made at COP15 is delivered.
The commitment was to see developed countries given at least $20 billion (Sh2.9 billion) per annum by 2025.