The 28th meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 28) convened in Nairobi from 27 July to 1 August 2026. While much of the meeting’s attention centred on a review of progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), sustainable use of biodiversity emerged as a significant thread, most visibly in the agenda item on sustainable wildlife management.
A Push for a Dedicated Programme of Work on Sustainable Use
One of the more notable developments came from a bloc of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Brazil, speaking for Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay, put forward a proposal to launch a process toward a dedicated programme of work on the sustainable use of biodiversity by COP18.
Support for giving the topic more institutional weight was echoed by Panama, which noted that sustainable use – despite being one of the Convention’s three core pillars – has received limited attention. Saudi Arabia emphasised that sustainable use is a foundational pillar of the CBD. Ireland, however, felt the proposal needed more time and suggested it instead be flagged as an area for further work on the COP 17 agenda.
This divide persisted into the contact group negotiations, where delegates disagreed over whether sustainable use activities, products, and services fell within SBSTTA 28’s mandate at all, or whether they were properly part of sustainable wildlife management. The final SBSTTA recommendation reflects this division: it requests the Secretariat to launch an inclusive consultation process on options for strengthening the implementation of sustainable use, including through a potential programme of work. However, this text remains bracketed for COP 17 to resolve.
New Voluntary Global Guidance for Sustainable Wildlife Management
The bulk of substantive sustainable-use discussion took place under the sustainable wildlife management agenda item, addressed in plenary and in a contact group co-chaired by Lactitia Tshitwamulomoni (South Africa) and Carolina Caceres (Canada). Delegates worked from a draft voluntary global guidance document on the sustainable management of wildlife, applicable across multiple species and practices.
Broad support existed for adopting the guidance, though its emphases varied by region and interest group:
- The African Group wanted the guidance to explicitly address capacity-building for sustainable agricultural practices that reduce human-wildlife conflict, plus a glossary of terms to reduce ambiguity.
- Pacific SIDS pushed for finance and capacity to monitor harvest, trade, and benefits; stronger coherence with CITES and the Convention on Migratory Species; and a central role for Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) through free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and equitable benefit-sharing.
- China, Russia, Peru, Bahrain, India, and Indonesia stressed the guidance’s voluntary character. Russia argued this should be explicit in the operative paragraphs and also felt the guidance’s focus on IPLCs unduly narrowed its scope, while China called for distinguishing legal from illegal wildlife use.
- Several delegations including Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Gabon called for stronger language on human-wildlife conflict, including compensation mechanisms for loss of life.
- Botswana highlighted its own shift toward community-led conservation as a model for local economic empowerment, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo cautioned that the guidance should avoid criminalising livelihoods that depend on wildlife.
- Indigenous and youth groups (IIFB, GYBN) called for a rights-based approach and stronger recognition of intergenerational equity and youth participation.
In the contact group, negotiators agreed the guidance’s core principles should not need renegotiation as long as they were drawn from existing internationally agreed texts and also clarified that the listed safeguard measures were illustrative rather than exhaustive. The preambular language was revised to recognise IPLCs as key stewards of biodiversity.
The final recommendation encourages Parties to integrate the voluntary global guidance into national biodiversity strategies and action plans, development plans, wildlife policies, and relevant legal and institutional frameworks. It also encourages Parties to engage the private sector and financial institutions in adopting the guidance in line with GBF Target 15, effectively linking this target to Targets 5 and 9. The Secretariat was tasked with promoting the guidance’s use, compiling best practices and lessons learned, and facilitating related capacity-building, with a progress report due before COP 19.
Next Steps
Several elements, however, remain bracketed for COP 17 to finalise, including whether the sustainable wildlife management guidance should be formally “adopted and welcomed with appreciation,” and, as noted, whether the Secretariat should launch an inclusive consultation process on options for strengthening sustainable use implementation, potentially through a dedicated programme of work.
The good news is that sustainable use is now clearly under discussion within the CBD process. The less welcome news is that it has taken more than three decades and 17 COPs to arrive at a dedicated programme of work on one of the three core objectives of the convention. But the momentum is there as reflected in the focus on sustainable use in several other agenda items as well including a One Health approach to zoonotic disease risk and the marine and coastal biodiversity discussions. COP 17 in Yerevan, Armenia, this October, might succeed in putting sustainable use more clearly on the multilateral map.
By Francis Vorhies
For more details on the deliberations and outcomes of SBSTTA 28, please see: IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin, SBSTTA 28/SBI 7 Summary Report