From November 2 to 5, Gaborone, Botswana, hosted the 1st Africa Biodiversity Summit — a historic event that brought together leaders, experts, and community representatives from across the continent to discuss the future of conservation in Africa.
On the sidelines of the Summit, the Community Leaders Network (CLN)and the Alliance for Indigenous People and Local Communities (AICA) organized a parallel event focused on the role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) in implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
ReGeCom actively participated in this event through Calisto Ribeiro, who joined the panel on capacity-building and support for IPLCs. In his remarks, he highlighted the importance of strengthening the technical and organizational capacities of communities, promoting access to information, and fostering collaboration networks that enable more effective participation in biodiversity decision-making processes.
The event brought together representatives from several African countries (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Zambia), who discussed key issues such as:
- The influence of IPLCs on biodiversity policies at local, national, and continental levels.
- The importance of dialogue between communities, governments, and private sector .
- The barriers that still limit meaningful inclusion of communities in decision-making.
- Strategies to ensure that traditional knowledge is recognized and integrated into conservation policies.
The CLN and AICA side event underscored the urgency of recognizing and valuing the role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in conserving Africa’s biodiversity. Building inclusive and participatory policies is essential to achieving global biodiversity goals and ensuring a sustainable future for the continent.
ReGeCom’s participation reinforces its commitment to promoting community governance systems, as a mechanism to amplify and respect the role of local communities in biodiversity conservation.This presence at the Africa Biodiversity summit marks another step in ReGeCom’s ongoing effort to continue strengthening regional and pan-African platforms, by sharing Mozambican communities’ voices, in shaping inclusive and sustainable conservation agendas.
