The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Conference on Biological Diversity opened in Yerevan on Monday, October 19, bringing delegates from nearly 200 countries to Armenia for 12 days of negotiations.
At the opening plenary, Armenia’s Minister of Environment Hambardzum Matevosyan was elected President of COP17 for a two-year term, placing Armenia at the head of the Convention’s decision-making process until the next conference.
Matevosyan thanked the Parties for their trust in Armenia and in him personally, and said he would serve all Parties impartially, ensure every voice is heard, and turn their collective efforts into tangible results.
In his opening address, he said Yerevan gives the Parties an opportunity to assess the progress achieved in biodiversity conservation and agree on concrete steps, and that meeting the targets set for 2030 will require accelerating those efforts.
He said Armenia’s presidency would be guided by open dialogue, inclusiveness and mutual respect, with the task of bridging differences and building consensus across governments, young people, the scientific community and the private sector.
“May Yerevan become a hub where shared commitments are translated into collective action,” the Ministry of Environment said in closing its account of the address.
COP17 runs through October 30 and will carry out the first global review of collective progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and its 23 targets, adopted in 2022.
The conference was preceded by the Leaders’ Summit on Biodiversity, where heads of state and government adopted the Yerevan Declaration on Friday, October 16. Matevosyan read the text aloud at the summit.
The declaration states that the first global report on implementation shows collective efforts and recorded progress have fallen short, and calls for wider international cooperation, stronger practical measures and better implementation mechanisms.
It commits participants to “halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity by 2030” and to living in harmony with nature by 2050, and calls on COP17 delegates to carry its commitments into their final decisions.
Zartonk Media will continue to follow Armenia’s Road to COP17 through the conference.
