Enviro News Asia, Panama — Despite the humidity fogging the windows of the Atlapa Convention Center, the atmosphere turned noticeably cold when the chairperson silenced us — youth, women, and Indigenous Peoples gathered to influence how the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) would be implemented.
We were attending the 27th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 27) of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Panama City last October. Alongside fellow delegates from around the world, we came to contribute perspectives grounded in lived experience and intergenerational responsibility.
The meeting also marked the first formal session dedicated to hearing advice from the CBD’s subsidiary body for Indigenous Peoples and local communities established under Article 8(j), known as SB8J. For two weeks, country representatives and observer networks analyzed biodiversity data and debated pathways for implementing the GBF ahead of the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17), which will take place in Yerevan this November.
Between each biennial biodiversity conference, working groups and subsidiary bodies convene to review new scientific evidence and prepare strategic recommendations that will ultimately shape high-level negotiations. These technical meetings are not merely procedural — they determine the language, ambition, and accountability mechanisms embedded in global biodiversity policy.
We attended SBSTTA 27 as youth delegates of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), the official youth constituency to the CBD. We believe that global biodiversity governance must reflect the diversity of ecosystems and communities it affects. Youth, women, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities must not only be present in these spaces but empowered to advocate for meaningful change.
In the weeks preceding the meeting, we worked extensively with other GYBN delegates to develop concrete, evidence-based proposals. We called for stronger accountability mechanisms, deeper integration of human rights principles, recognition of intergenerational equity, and meaningful inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in implementation processes.
However, once negotiations began, government-led interventions and procedural debates dominated the discussions. Observer constituencies were largely confined to reacting rather than shaping outcomes.
On the third day of SBSTTA 27, we raised our constituency flags from the observer section, ready to contribute proposed amendments to the draft text. We anticipated an opportunity to speak. Instead, we were informed that time had expired.
The room fell silent. The opportunity to intervene in recommendations that will influence the next Biodiversity COP had vanished.
This moment reflects a broader question confronting global environmental governance: Are youth and marginalized constituencies genuinely included in decision-making processes, or are we merely symbolic participants?
Meaningful participation requires more than allocated seats in the room. It demands structured speaking time, incorporation of proposals into official drafts, transparent feedback mechanisms, and recognition that intergenerational equity is not rhetorical — it is a legal and moral imperative.
As the world moves toward COP17, biodiversity negotiations must confront this democratic deficit. If the Global Biodiversity Framework is to succeed, it must not only be scientifically sound but socially legitimate. That legitimacy depends on whether the voices of youth and frontline communities shape the policies that will define their futures.
Without this shift, global biodiversity talks risk remaining performative spaces where inclusion is celebrated in principle but constrained in practice. (*)
