By Charly Facheux
Growing up in Cameroon, I understood the forest through what it provided. It was where our water came from, where elders found medicine, and where families turned for food in a lean season. It also held our stories. We did not call it biodiversity. It was home, and taking care of it was part of taking care of our future.
That understanding has stayed with me through a career researching forest economies and working with communities and governments across Africa. It is also the reason the negotiations taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 to 30 October matter far beyond the conference hall. COP17 of the Convention on Biological Diversity will help determine whether global commitments can deliver for the people whose lives depend most directly on nature.
For a farmer in eastern Cameroon or a fisherperson on Lake Victoria, a biodiversity summit in the Caucasus may seem remote. Yet its decisions will influence how conservation is financed, how land is managed and how the benefits of genetic resources are shared. Those choices reach into household incomes, food production, and water supplies.
A 2020 World Economic Forum analysis estimated that more than half of global GDP, about US$44 trillion, depended moderately or highly on nature. In Africa, that dependence is visible in farms, fisheries, forests and wetlands. Biodiversity belongs in economic planning because the costs of its loss extend across the economy.
Congo Basin significance
The Congo Basin shows why the rest of the world also has a stake. Its forests, spanning six countries including Cameroon, form the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest. A World Resources Institute analysis published in 2021 estimated that they absorbed around 600 million tonnes more carbon dioxide annually than they released. Among the three largest tropical rainforest regions, the Congo remained the strongest net carbon sink in that assessment.
Research published in Nature Geoscience in 2022 estimated that the central Congo Basin’s peatlands store about 29 billion tonnes of carbon. Protecting these ecosystems is, therefore, a global responsibility, as well as an African development priority. Their value must be reflected in the finance and decision-making authority available to the countries and communities that sustain them.
Nearly four years ago, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework set a goal of mobilising at least US$200 billion annually for biodiversity by 2030, including at least US$30 billion in international finance for developing countries. The direction of global investment remains deeply at odds with that ambition.
UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature 2026 estimates that US$7.3 trillion flowed into activities directly harmful to nature in 2023, compared with US$220 billion invested in nature-based solutions. These flows are a different measure from the framework’s biodiversity finance target, but the imbalance is clear: harmful finance exceeded investment in nature-based solutions by more than thirty to one. COP17’s first global review must address both the shortage of finance for nature and the investments driving its decline.
Africa’s influence
Africa’s influence in these negotiations depends on coordination. Its 54 parties account for more than a quarter of the Convention’s membership. A shared position gives them greater leverage on finance, benefit-sharing, and the terms of implementation than separate national appeals.
The Cali Fund, created to share benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources, provides an opportunity to make that leverage count. African negotiators must carry a common demand from the negotiating room into the rules and institutions that determine where resources go.
Four priorities should guide that demand. First, finance must be predictable and accessible to African institutions and the communities sustaining biodiversity. Funding arrangements should strengthen their capacity to manage resources and give them authority over priorities, with transparent accounting for how money is spent.
Second, the Cali Fund must receive meaningful contributions from companies benefiting commercially from digital genetic information. Launched in February 2025, it has begun receiving contributions, but participation must grow substantially. Clear contribution rules and transparent allocation should ensure that developing countries and Indigenous Peoples and local communities receive fair benefits. Open scientific exchange should be supported by fair sharing of the value it helps generate.
Role in decision-making
Third, Indigenous Peoples and local communities need secure rights and a meaningful role in decisions affecting their lands and livelihoods. Participation must include the ability to influence conservation plans and how benefits are shared. People cannot be expected to sustain conservation while carrying its costs without a say in its terms.
Fourth, the global review must assess whether protected and conserved areas are working. Hectares alone cannot show whether habitats remain connected, wildlife populations are secure or governance is fair. Progress must be judged through ecological outcomes and the wellbeing of people living alongside nature.
The same standards apply to conservation organisations. Projects designed around external priorities and short grant cycles can leave local institutions unable to sustain the work. Long-term ownership requires community enterprises that earn from healthy landscapes, African universities that generate knowledge, and governments that budget for nature as essential infrastructure.
Manyara Ranch in northern Tanzania offers a practical example. Once a degraded state cattle ranch in a vital wildlife corridor, it is now leased to the Monduli District Council and managed by a trust that includes representatives of two neighbouring villages. Its renovated primary school was handed over to the council in 2023 and was reported in 2024 to serve more than 1,000 pupils. The significance lies in the authority and capabilities retained locally. Conservation partners should help build institutions that can carry the work forward.
Accessible finance
The forest of my childhood taught me that using nature carefully was a responsibility to those who would need it tomorrow. That principle belongs in the financial rules and development choices being negotiated in Yerevan.
African governments must sustain a common position, international partners must deliver accessible finance, and conservation organisations must strengthen local authority. COP17 should be judged by whether its decisions make that possible. Its consequences will be felt in the water people drink, the food they grow and the forests their children inherit.
The author, Charly Facheux, Is the Senior Vice President, Conservation Programs, African Wildlife Foundation.
