This is the first time they have met since the publication of a draft text in July.

The delegations of the member countries of the UN Convention on Biological Biodiversity (CBD) have been meeting since Monday online until September 3, in view of the COP15 on biodiversity, which has just been postponed to April 2022 .

The CBD presented in July a draft text to be finalized during negotiations in Kungming, China, next spring, aimed at "living in harmony with nature" by 2050, with intermediate targets for 2030.

"It's not at all ambitious enough"

Online meetings will be limited to three hours per day.

"We should hear general statements about what different parties think of this draft text," Georgina Chandler, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, commented at an online press conference.

She recalled that Colombia is organizing a parallel event on August 30.

This draft text is "a step in the right direction but it is not at all ambitious enough", commented to AFP Susan Lieberman, vice-president of the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WC).

"There is no mention of the pandemic" of Covid-19, she regretted for example.

The Avaaz movement calls in particular for the recognition of the role of indigenous peoples in preserving nature, "to conserve and protect at least half of the planet by 2030 to remain under a global warming of 1.5 ° C and to fight against the acceleration loss of biodiversity ”, end harmful financial subsidies and provide sufficient funds to conserve nature.

COP15 from October 11 to 15

The COP15, an international meeting considered essential for the protection of nature, will open initially with a virtual summit, from October 11 to 15, which should lead to a “Kungming declaration”.

"The quality of this declaration will be a test for China" which will then officially take the presidency of the COP15, underlined Li Shuo, of Greenpeace, during an online press conference.

But the actual face-to-face negotiations will be held in Kungming, China, from April 25 to May 8, 2022. It will be necessary to see how "this additional time is used to really respond to the issues of the Kunming negotiations" concerning protected areas, financing and the effective implementation of the measures that will be adopted, continued Li Shuo.

COP15, which was originally scheduled to be held in October 2020, had already been postponed for a year.

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