COP17 in Armenia: World Nature Conference starts with big tasks

COP17 in Armenia World Nature Conference starts with big tasks As of: October 19, 2026 • 1:08 p.m

Around a third of the world's land and sea areas should be effectively protected by 2030. How this should be achieved will be discussed starting today at the COP17 World Nature Conference in Armenia's capital Yerevan.

It is one of the 23 goals of the World Convention on Nature, which the almost 200 parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity agreed on four years ago: By 2030, around a third of the earth's surface should be protected. However, it is not certain whether this can be achieved.

The question facing the World Nature Conference COP17, which begins today in Armenia's capital Yerevan, is: What needs to happen so that the protection of biological diversity can finally make faster and more successful progress?

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Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider will fly to Yerevan. The SPD politician wants to take part in the negotiations in the second week of the conference. Last but not least, he wants to promote international cooperation in protecting biological diversity. He explained this in the Bundestag last Friday. Germany will strengthen international cooperation, he said there. "Nature in particular does not stop at national borders, but needs our international cooperation."

The federal government recently pledged $100 million for African protected areas and mobilized another $200 million from foundations. At the same time, the federal government wants to link species and climate protection more closely. However, German biodiversity funding has recently fallen.

And worldwide, conservation is progressing too slowly, according to Astrid Schomaker, head of the UN Biodiversity Secretariat. Progress varied across individual goals, she explained. And: “They are not yet taking place at the pace and to the extent required to achieve the goals for 2030.”

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The slow implementation is particularly evident where economic interests are affected. There is also a problem with land protection: even if all promises were fulfilled, not 30 percent of land and sea areas would be protected by 2030. In addition, some living creatures have so far hardly been taken into account - fungi, for example. But that should change at COP17. A new protection strategy is being presented, according to mycologist Meike Piepenbring from the University of Frankfurt am Main.

According to Piepenbring, the fact that mushrooms have not received sufficient attention so far is shown by the fact that only around one percent of the mushrooms are evaluated in the so-called Red List, which monitors endangered animal and plant species. Fungi are indispensable for soils, material cycles and the growth of many plants.

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But in order for such protection strategies to be implemented, money is needed. And there is a lack of that everywhere. By 2030, at least $200 billion should be mobilized annually for global nature conservation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is therefore calling for states to keep their aid promises and reduce subsidies that are harmful to nature. The Cali Fund shows how difficult new financing methods are: companies should voluntarily pay for the use of genetic data from nature. By the beginning of October, only $6,000 had been documented, and since then there has only been one additional payment.

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Yerevan should now provide a roadmap for faster nature conservation. It remains to be seen whether the states will agree on this. Biodiversity researcher Yves Zinngrebe from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research emphasizes that even one country or small groups of countries could stop the entire process - "and with it the momentum that is happening globally." Because at the World Nature Conference, decisions are made by consensus.

Whether concrete measures are agreed in Armenia or whether political blockages prevent progress will also be a test for international cooperation.

This topic in the program: NDR Info | News | Oct 19, 2026 | 11:47 am