In the first edition of the Mazingira Yetu Network newsletter, Professor Moenieba Isaacs writes about how critical it is for conservationists, researchers, and the public to be aware of the direction in which global biodiversity and conservation plans are going, and why it is important to know.
I write this from Colombia, where I was fortunate to have attended the ICARRD+20 events: an academic conference at the University of Cartagena, a social movement summit, and the main ICARRD+20 conference. I am now in the coastal community of Barù, an Afro-descendant slave settlement off the coast of Cartagena, where less than a 1000km away, Venezuela’s President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were abducted, and an oil embargo and blockade have caused energy and food access crises in Cuba. I thought of how small-scale fishers are criminalised, shot at, murdered under narcoterrorism.
Then, I heard of the Bezos Earth Fund of $24.5million to assist park rangers protect the Eastern Tropical Pacific in small-scale fishing areas of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador. In a country like Colombia, with so many highly problematic para-military presences to fight against the drug cartels and trade routes, conservation is caught between the military might and big money from the super-rich philanthropy.
This year we need to keep on our social and spatial justice lenses when we are talking about conservation. There is a tension between scientific and diplomatic agreements supporting the mainstream narratives of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Adopted in late 2022, this is the current “Paris Agreement for Nature.” It sets 23 targets for 2030, including the “30X30” goal to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans.
We also need to watch how Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) are being mainstreamed. OECM is a conservation designation for areas that are not officially protected areas (like national parks) but are managed in ways that achieve the long-term conservation of biodiversity. It is de facto conservation in an area where its primary definition might be something outside of conservation — a sacred natural site, a military training ground, or a traditionally managed indigenous territory — but the result of its use is a healthy ecosystem.
Does this mean that indigenous people and local communities who have been the custodians of nature and whose places fall under OECMs are providing a counter narrative to fortress conservation? No. 30X30 and OECMs are forms of fortress conservation and we need to make sure we bring in the ways these tools are used to protect biodiversity, but can also exclude local people from their land and livelihoods and restrict the types of livelihoods they can have. It is our role to surface these contradictions in conservation tools and how they affect local, poor, and vulnerable communities.
Social movements from the Global South view biodiversity loss as a core political issue, linking it directly to climate change and losses of livelihoods, homes, and land of many poor and vulnerable communities. Southern Africa countries like Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia are all experiencing extreme floods and droughts that are caused by climate change.
In 2026, I urge us to think about how we integrate the three Rio Conventions (listed below) that pronounce on global environmental policy to guide our research, practice and activism in biodiversity conservation (see Nancy Barisoa’s blog).
- The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), focusing on nature conservation.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which led to the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.
The Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which focuses on land degradation.
Wars, missiles, and drones are harmful to the environment, climate, and people, and as conservation activists, we cannot look the other way. We have a responsibility to challenge these contradictions and to highlight the social and spatial injustices, but also be part of a conservation movement locally, regionally and globally. With this, I hope to see many of your voices come out in this space this year.
In 2025, we hosted a successful Masterclass with Loyiso Dunga on OECMs in December, and we created it because the 2025 Mazingira Yetu cohort asked for a deeper dive into the topic after our New Thinking in Biodiversity and Social Justice short course. Our communications manager Deshnee Subramany hosted a training workshop on how to write a blog and an opinion article, and how to know which one is best.
2026 is a year for us to keep disrupting, transforming, and renewing how conservation is practiced in Africa — together.
The Mazingira Yetu Network is made up of alumni from our New Thinking in Biodiversity and Social Justice. It is aimed at young black conservation professionals, and provides tools for their work as they seek to ensure justice is considered before biodiversity and conservation practices are fulfilled.
