Protecting biodiversity is about far more than nature – it’s at the heart of our own health and wellbeing. A few years ago, I visited an IFAD project for the first time and saw it firsthand.

The rural women I met in Maharashtra state, India, had until recently struggled with low agricultural productivity and severe food insecurity – and a key cause was biodiversity decline. Fertilizer overuse had led to a vicious cycle, damaging the soil and local ecosystem in such a way that even more chemicals were required to grow food.

The new farming practices introduced by the IFAD-supported CAIM project transformed their lives. The women told me not only about the renewed lushness of their land, increased production and better nutrition – they described relief from the itchy skin, burns and eye damage caused by improperly used chemical fertilizers. As the improved soil structure made weeding easier, their heavy workloads were also reduced.

Best of all, with renewed confidence in their farms and in the resilience of their livelihoods, the women were empowered to influence their households, communities and schools to adopt sustainable farming practices.

For me, that field visit was a turning point. It showed me not only the transformative power of conserving biodiversity in all its forms, but that once convinced and empowered, people – including women and youth – can drive change themselves.

A plan to protect the planet together

Luckily, the global community is taking steps in the right direction. Adopted in 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework brings people and food systems together at the heart of nature conservation. It calls for a whole-of-society approach, in which we all play our part.

To implement a truly people-centred approach to nature, it’s crucial to empower local communities and their organizations to be part of and to steer the movement. IFAD has recently updated its Policy on Engagement with Indigenous Peoples to recognize Indigenous Peoples as equal partners and is committed to ensuring they and their organizations have access to funding and climate finance.

Now, it is crucial we ensure that these global commitments reach everyone. While many countries are revising their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans to align with the Global Biodiversity Framework, we recently surveyed over 50 national farmers’ organizations and learned that less than 10 per cent were aware of it. This must change in order for rural people to have a seat at the table.

An organizational approach to biodiversity

Around the world, IFAD is working to expand awareness of the Global Biodiversity Framework. I myself have been presenting it to farmers’ organizations, youth delegates and other partners, in some cases going on to jointly develop informational blogs, events and training. We plan to create a biodiversity-focused working group to facilitate even more regular dialogue, including with Indigenous Peoples’ groups.

Meanwhile, our core work gives biodiversity high importance. As the only international financial institution mandated to invest in rural people, IFAD integrates biodiversity in our projects, demonstrating how it’s essential to improve people’s resilience, incomes, health and nutrition.

We adopted our first Biodiversity Strategy in 2022. From here on, we are committed to spending nearly a third of our climate finance to support nature-based solutions in small-scale agriculture by 2030.

We have strong biodiversity safeguards, and are developing methodologies and indicators to track our investments and measure their impact. This enhances our accountability and transparency for our Member States and rural people. Going forward, we are piloting the use of AI to identify how our portfolio aligns with the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Healthy planet for healthy people

Our project participants across the world are making a difference to biodiversity, and biodiversity is making a difference for them.

For example, in Brazil, PSA supported rural women in identifying, storing and propagating the seeds of native varieties of plants that were perfectly adapted to local semi-arid conditions. Now, they are not just preserving their region's diverse genetic wealth – they are making climate-resilient varieties of beans, tomatoes, pumpkins and passion fruit available to fellow farmers, ensuring they can grow the foods their communities depend on.

In Nicaragua, NICADAPTA worked with cocoa and coffee farmers to start planting shade trees amongst their crops. Trees and their dropped leaves improved soil health and retained water, while creating healthy microclimates in which coffee and cocoa flourished. Their fruits and timber provided new income streams and sources of nutritious food. Over 6,250 hectares are now part of these biodiverse cropping systems, and each hectare is sequestering 2.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.

We are working to strengthen data collection even further to demonstrate the enduring value of investing in nature. In Kenya and Eswatini, for example, we are working with the Nature-Based Infrastructure Global Resource Centre to demonstrate the value of our investments in ecosystem restoration and agroforestry. Preliminary cost-benefit assessments suggest economic and environmental benefits that equate to a 25 per cent internal rate of return – a figure that would delight any Silicon Valley investor!

Now it’s your turn

Each and every one of us can commit to being responsible guardians of the ecosystems that nourish us. Here are some steps you can take in your own community:

• Advocate for your governments, organizations and places of learning to commit to strong safeguards and targets, with accountability measures, so that progress on biodiversity – as well as enduring challenges – is clear to all.
• Check that the products you buy and the brands you support are not contributing to the destruction of habitats, nor exploiting local communities and Indigenous Peoples.
• Plant native flowers, fruits and vegetables. By doing this you are contributing to preserve biodiversity in the local area, with benefits to the wider ecosystem.
• Educate yourself, your family, your colleagues and community about biodiversity, ecosystems and the threats they face and opportunities to restore them.

After all, we’re all part of nature, and nature is part of us.