A/HRC/55/49 B. Convention on Biological Diversity 55. There is an even more acute tension between conceptualizing nature as a natural resource versus the source of life in the Convention on Biological Diversity. The parties to the Convention adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. They agreed, among other targets, to conserve 30 per cent of the world’s lands, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans by 2030 – the “30x30 target” (target 3). Target 19 provides that at least $200 billion should be devoted to this conservation agenda by 2030, 90 per cent of which is to come from private finance, with an emphasis on blended finance. The framework encourages States to in effect subsidize private investment. 56. During negotiations, Indigenous Peoples and members of civil society were concerned that target 19 would change people’s relationship to the land and waterways, turning the ecosystem into a financial market. 63 As such, target 19 also includes a commitment to “enhancing the role of collective actions, including by indigenous peoples and local communities, Mother Earth centric actions and non-market-based approaches including community based natural resource management and civil society cooperation and solidarity aimed at the conservation of biodiversity”. Mother Earth-centric actions are defined as an “ecocentric and [human] rights-based approach enabling the implementation of actions towards harmonic and complementary relationships between peoples and nature, promoting the continuity of all living beings and their communities and ensuring the non-commodification of environmental functions of Mother Earth”. The Framework is to be implemented through a human rights-based approach (paras. 6 and 7 (a), (g) and (n)). 57. Reconciling the concepts of nature as a financial market and as Mother Earth is unlikely. It is also well recognized that conservation efforts that create protected areas excluding people, as envisioned under the 30x30 target, often violate human rights, especially for Indigenous Peoples.64 As discussed below, conservation finance, including “blue finance” for oceans, as currently structured, carries serious risks of human rights violations. C. Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction 58. The Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity, which at the time of writing was not yet in force, will place a portion of the world’s oceans into marine protected areas in an effort to limit overfishing and biodiversity loss and regulate shipping lanes. Read alongside the Convention on Biological Diversity, the ambition is to conserve 30 per cent of the world’s high seas. The high seas are the parts of the ocean that lie outside a country’s exclusive economic zone and cover about half the earth’s surface. The high seas are a crucial habitat for life. They also produce roughly half of the world’s oxygen, mainly from plankton.65 59. Creating marine protected areas, or other area-based management tools, on the high seas without doing anything to address power imbalances might push more industrial fleets into the exclusive economic zones of developing countries.66 This creates a significant risk of threatening local food security. More generally, States must not lose sight that one of the objectives of the Agreement is to support food security and other socioeconomic objectives, including the protection of cultural values (art. 17 (d)). Given the central role small-scale fishing plays in coastal communities, this objective can be met only if States respect, protect and fulfil human rights in coastal communities, especially in the context of area-based management tools. 63 64 65 66 12 Andre Standing, “Blue finance: how much debt can the ocean sustain? Implications for coastal fishing communities in South Africa” (Amsterdam, Transnational Institute, 2013). See A/71/229 and A/77/290. See https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html. See https://www.cffacape.org/publications-blog/an-ambitious-high-seas-treaty-must-not-come-at-theexpense-of-coastal-fishing-communities. GE.23-26071