When Nature and Climate Collide: Panama’s Biodiversity Summit Shows Unity Is Harder Than It Seems
In a sweltering October week in Panama City, the world’s biodiversity negotiators gathered with a simple mission: stop the ecological bleeding before Earth’s systems collapse entirely. The twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate breakdown have become so intertwined that solving one without the other is now impossible—a reality that shaped every discussion at the October 2025 meetings, even as countries struggled to agree on next steps.
The Crisis Nobody Wants to Talk About
While climate change dominates headlines with storms and heatwaves, biodiversity loss advances like a silent predator. Species vanish, forests recede, and soils degrade—none with the spectacle of a hurricane, yet all with profound consequences. These losses directly weaken climate resilience: degraded ecosystems fail to absorb carbon, dying forests release stored emissions, and collapsing fisheries push vulnerable communities deeper into poverty.
Panama’s Environment Minister, Juan Carlos Navarro, encapsulated the urgency, declaring that “interdependent crises demand unified solutions.” Delegates debated how to better align the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with climate efforts under the UNFCCC.
The science is unequivocal. The Panama meetings laid groundwork for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, underscoring that “biodiversity conservation and protection is essential to climate resilience, ecosystem health and human well-being.” Experts highlighted the vital role of soil biodiversity—the invisible universe beneath our feet—as foundational to ecosystem stability and climate goals. CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker described biodiverse soils as “Earth’s infrastructure,” yet policies to protect them remain fragmented.
When Land Dies: The Desertification Crisis
Weeks after the biodiversity meetings, Panama hosted the 23rd session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CRIC23), completing its historic trifecta as the first nation to convene all three Rio Conventions in a single year. The timing was intentional: CRIC23 focused on land degradation and drought—issues squarely at the intersection of biodiversity collapse and climate disruption.
Regional consultations on November 30 revealed deep fractures in global consensus. Delegates from Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Northern Mediterranean met separately to chart their priorities. The UNCCD Executive Secretary stressed that “real leadership begins with understanding,” dedicating the consultations to regional challenges while acknowledging a shared message: the urgent need for faster, more inclusive implementation of land restoration and drought resilience strategies.
CRIC23 delegates reviewed alarming data showing that land degradation affects billions of people, while extreme droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity. Discussions centred on progress toward voluntary land degradation neutrality targets, capacity-building, and updated reporting procedures following UNCCD COP16.
A Breakthrough in Sustainable Land Management Reporting
One of CRIC23’s major technical advances came when Nicole Harari of WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) presented proposals to streamline how countries document and report sustainable land management (SLM). The session explored linking the WOCAT database—where practitioners share field-tested SLM solutions—with PRAIS, the UNCCD’s official reporting platform. This integration would allow governments to incorporate proven practices directly into national reports.
Parties welcomed the proposal, signalling readiness to adopt more practical, evidence-based reporting. A side event showcased emerging national SLM platforms connected to the WOCAT global network.
Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification presented its new SLM Framework, set for launch at COP17 in Mongolia, featuring the first Arabic-language SLM platform integrated with WOCAT. Mongolia announced plans to document SLM knowledge in Mongolian and English, with a national compendium of best practices to be released by COP17 in 2026. The Philippines’ Bureau of Soils and Water Resources highlighted PhilCAT, its national SLM platform active since 1999. Bhutan’s UNCCD focal point launched Selected Sustainable Land Management Best Practices Promoted on Steep to Very Steep Slopes of Bhutan, tailored to its unique mountainous terrain.
Panama’s Climate Gambit
Panama used 2025 to redefine environmental diplomacy, becoming the first country to host meetings for all three Rio Conventions—biodiversity, climate, and desertification—in a single year. During Climate Week in May, Minister Navarro unveiled the country’s Nature Pledge, describing it as “a unique instrument that brings together climate, biodiversity, and land objectives under a unified strategy.”
Panama has the record to back it up: carbon-negative status, 65% forest cover, and a commitment to restore 100,000 hectares of degraded land by 2035. Its integrated approach reflects the holistic action climate advocates have long demanded, treating nature as the foundation of climate solutions.
Yet Panama’s leadership also exposes how far the global community lags. Even as it launched the Panama Natural Fund to secure long-term conservation financing, October’s global biodiversity negotiations ended with heavily bracketed text and no consensus on several key recommendations.
Indigenous Communities Take the Lead
The week’s most significant breakthrough came not from governments but from those who have protected ecosystems for millennia. The inaugural meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j)—the first permanent body in any environmental treaty dedicated to Indigenous peoples—convened during the Panama biodiversity meetings. Created after intense advocacy at COP16 in Cali, the body grants Indigenous communities a formal role in shaping global policy on the lands they steward.
This has profound implications for climate action. Indigenous territories contain 80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity and massive carbon stores. The new body focused on integrating traditional knowledge into progress reviews and securing funding for Indigenous-led conservation—recognition that community-based approaches often outperform top-down government programmes. As countries race toward the 30×30 target of protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030, Indigenous leadership offers an effective and proven pathway that bridges climate and biodiversity objectives.
What This Means for India
For India, the Panama outcomes carry significant implications. As part of the Asian regional group at CRIC23, India faces mounting pressure to accelerate land restoration in a country where nearly 30% of land is degraded and desertification threatens millions of farmers. The renewed focus on drought resilience resonates in a nation grappling with erratic monsoons and deepening water scarcity.
The new Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) is especially relevant for India, home to over 700 tribal communities—8% of the population—who manage extensive forest ecosystems across the Western Ghats, the Northeast, and central India. The body’s emphasis on funding Indigenous-led conservation and integrating traditional knowledge could strengthen India’s community forest rights movement and provide much-needed global backing.
India reports that around 22% of terrestrial and 5% of marine and coastal areas fall under protected or similarly designated zones. Meeting the 30×30 target will require significant expansion by 2030. The WOCAT–PRAIS integration showcased at CRIC23 offers India a practical tool to document and share its SLM successes—similar to how the Philippines has used PhilCAT for decades. This could reinforce national initiatives on natural farming and soil restoration in regions suffering from soil depletion due to intensive agriculture.
The Kunming–Montreal Framework calls for US$200 billion per year in global biodiversity finance, with US$20–30 billion earmarked for developing countries. This represents an opportunity for India to secure international funding for projects ranging from Western Ghats restoration to mangrove protection along its 7,500-kilometre coastline. However, the failure of the Panama talks to reach consensus suggests that obtaining such financing will require sustained diplomatic pressure.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Despite the rhetoric of integration, the Panama meetings exposed uncomfortable realities. Developing countries warned that inadequate funding and digital access barriers prevent them from fully participating in shaping global biodiversity solutions—even as they face the harshest climate impacts. Five days of technical negotiations among 800 delegates failed to produce clear recommendations on invasive species, genetically modified organisms, or biodiversity–health linkages—all issues directly linked to climate resilience.
CBD’s Astrid Schomaker issued a stark warning:
“We’re running out of time in our efforts to halt and reverse the world’s biodiversity loss. We must speed up our efforts and move towards taking action.”
With COP17 set for Mongolia in October 2026, and regional consultations at CRIC23 revealing divergent priorities, countries face mounting pressure to transform Panama’s fragmented progress into the coordinated climate–nature action the planet urgently needs.
