Photo: The Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is based in Montreal, Quebec. Photo by Quintin Soloviev.
The next United Nations Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in Quito, Ecuador in October 2028.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the main decision-making body of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
COP18 in Ecuador should be a moment to assess progress on ensuring the full protection of environmental human rights defenders.
It will be the third biodiversity summit since nearly 200 nations reached the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) pact with 23 targets at COP15 took place in Montreal, Canada in December 2022.
COP16 took place in Colombia (2024), COP17 in Armenia (2026).
Target 22, to be completed by 2030, includes the pledge to “ensure the full protection of environmental human rights defenders”.
The CBD website notes that a “component indicator” for Target 22 includes: “Number of verified cases of killings and other attacks against environmental human rights defenders in the previous 12 months.”
The draft of the first UN review of progress on the 23 targets, released in July 2026, notes under Target 22: “Very few Parties set targets that included the protection of environmental human rights defenders.”
Chart on page 268 of UN draft report.
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the main administrative body of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, is based in Montreal (413 Saint-Jacques Street, Suite 800).
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