Official policy can help facilitate actions at all levels.
Global Policy
COP17 Yerevan
The continuing challenge of implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework will be taken up again at COP17, to be held in Yerevan, Armenia, between October 19th and October 30th, 2026. California will once again be well represented, with perhaps 50 members of the Extended California Delegation, co-ordinated by the California Global Biodiversity Alliance: https://www.CalGBA.org. This will include people from Marin and the North Bay. More information may be found on the MBCI home page.
COP16 Summary
COP16, although lacking a quorum to adjourn in Cali, Colombia, at the end of 2024, resumed in Rome, Italy, in early 2025 to complete several important agreements. Implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework approved at COP15 was its main charge, and reactions are mixed as to how well it achieved that. The official statement on the conclusion of COP16 may be found at: https://www.cbd.int/article/cop16-resumed-session-closing-2025
COP15 Update
The COP15 biodiversity meetings, originally scheduled for 2020 in Kunming, China, finally concluded at the end of 2022 in Montreal, Canada. Delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, their official theme was “Ecological Civilization – Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”
COP15 was the fifteenth in a series of Conferences of Parties, all being attempts to improve implementation of the International Convention on Biodiversity, originally opened for signing at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and now endorsed by almost all countries in the world. (The history and text of the Convention can be found at: https://www.cbd.int/convention/).
Vice President Al Gore said that the most important statement of the 1992 meeting was that of 12-year-old Severn Suzuki. She had become very concerned that the growing environmental problems meant young people everywhere faced a bleak future. So she started a fundraising campaign to allow her and other children to attend the meeting. She asked the delegates, “Did you have to worry about these things when you were my age?” Then she told them what to do. “You grown-ups say that you love us. Please make your actions reflect your words.”
Thirty years later, she returned to make a statement at COP15. She said “Love is the important thing, and our actions do not reflect it.” She said the problem was not people, but rather a type of strange mindset that is “eating the earth and making us hurt each other.” She and many others advocated changes in ways of thinking as pre-requisites for effective action.
All of COP15 sessions were recorded and are still available at cbd.int/live in three main sections, Negotiations, Briefings, and Parallel Events. However, the last hour of the last plenary session of the negotiations provides key evidence of divergent opinions. The organizers congratulated themselves on finally making the meeting happen, and on finally reaching an agreement that addressed many important aspects of the biodiversity crisis. However, the last four presenters, representing the Global Biodiversity Youth Network, the Women’s Caucus, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity and the CBD Alliance, while acknowledging that while the final agreement had some good points, feared that it ran the risk of suffering the same fate as the Aichi Targets approved at COP10 in Nagoya, Japan (https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/). Out of those twenty targets, only six were even partially met by the end of the UN’s Decade of Biodiversity in 2020.
So what kind of action was taken at COP15 and how are people evaluating it? The agreement that resulted from two weeks of negotiations is known officially as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Its full text may be found at: https://www.cbd.int/article/cop15-final-text-kunming-montreal-gbf-221222.
A very succinct and sharp criticism of the final document was given by the last speaker, Theiva Lingam of Malaysia. Her full text may be found at: https://www.twn.my/title2/biotk/2022/btk221204.htm.
Her last sentence sums it up: “We cannot solve the biodiversity crisis using the same system that caused it.”
In general, criticisms focus on four main points. The first is that the agreement is not ambitious enough in its goals. The second is that it has no enforcement mechanisms to hold governments and corporations accountable. The third is that it does not provide financing sufficient for needed action, especially for cash-poor nations. The fourth is that it has not recognized the root cause of the crisis – centuries of exploitation.
A very thorough analysis of the plusses and minuses of the meetings has been provided by the Nature-Based Solutions Initiative of the University of Oxford (https://www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org/news/landmark-kunming-montreal-global-biodiversity-framework-to-halt-and-reverse-biodiversity-loss-by-2030-agreed/). The World Wildlife Federation (https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/global-deal-struck-to-reverse-nature-loss-by-2030-but-immediate-action-and-funds-needed-to-deliver) commends the targets and goals, but laments the lack of means to reach them. The Natural Resources Defense Council (https://www.nrdc.org/experts/paul-todd/final-biodiversity-framework-fails-meet-moment) is critical of the lack of ambition in the goals and targets, especially in comparison with the Aichi Targets. A summary from Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04503-9) describes the conflicts in the final hours and minutes of the negotiations.
Will things change? Severn Suzuki offered the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of people rising to a great challenge at the local level, and she thinks that local action is key to meeting the challenges of the biodiversity crisis as well. (Her full remarks may be found at the beginning of the 7th Subnational Government Summit at cbd.int/live under the Parallel Events). Local action is what MBCI does!
State Policy
AB 1573 Update
Long-term protection and enhancement of biodiversity logically start from the ground up. Native plants support native insects, birds, fish, amphibians, and other organisms because they are the anchors of terrestrial (and many riparian!) food webs.
In recognition of this important role for native plants, AB 1573 was introduced in the California State Legislature in 2023. AB 1573 would have established a minimum requirement for use of native plants in commercial landscaping. This is the biodiversity equivalent of regulations mandating minimum levels of recycling or water conservation, and hopefully will act as an incentive to nudge the state in the right direction. Currently, much commercial landscaping has few or no native plants, and this has made vast swaths of California into “wildlife food deserts.” AB 1573 had wide support, including editorial endorsement from the Los Angeles Times, the state’s largest newspaper. It passed out of the state assembly in June with a resounding majority and then went to the state senate. Its prospects looked good until it was unexpectedly sabotaged in committee at the last minute. For more information, please see https://www.cnps.org/stories.
Local Policy
PROPOSED 2026 LARKSPUR NATIVE PLANT RESOLUTION
In the absence of statewide legislation, many local jurisdictions in California are enacting native plant resolutions tailored to their local conditions. It may be fitting that the first local resolution for Marin will be presented in the only city named for a native plant – Larkspur! The proposed resolution will be presented at the beginning of the Larkspur City Council meeting at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, September 16th. Details for the meeting may be found at: http://www.larkspur.ca.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4527. The proposed resolution may be downloaded here: http://marinbiodiversity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/ProposedLarkspurNativePlantResolution16Sep2026.pdf
Larkspur Biodiversity Resolution 2023
Here is the full text of the Larkspur Biodiversity Resolution from 2023, which is referenced in the proposed Native Plant Resolution for 2026.
Sustainability Co-Ordinators and Local Biodiversity Policies
Many Marin cities and towns are appointing Sustainability Co-Ordinators. They are logical people to ask for help with the development and implementation of local biodiversity policies. Great opportunities for improvement in local biodiversity policy are the regular updates of General Plans.
Marin County Housing Element and Form-Based Code
Locally, the most important countywide policy being made is the update to the Marin Countywide Plan, especially the Housing Element. To date, MBCI has made comments on both the Housing Element and its relation to the overall countywide plan, and to the Objective Design and Development Standards (Form-Based Code). The latest revision of the Standards (Form-Based Code, Section B2, p. 62) requires “Landscape selection shall include 70% California native vegetation, applicable to Marin County.”
Link to Form-Based Code:
The website for the update to the Housing Element is: https://www.marincounty.org/depts/cd/divisions/housing/housing-element/draft-2023-2031-housing-element
Other Local Resolutions
In addition to commenting on planning updates, MBCI has also supported local resolutions pertaining to biodiversity. The first was the declaration of October 27, 2021, as Marin Biodiversity Day in honor of the event held at Dominican University featuring a talk by renowned ecologist Doug Tallamy.
The second resolution was one passed on September 13, 2022, in support of the monarch butterfly.