The Sustainable Ocean Initiative (SOI), a capacity-building programme established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, provides support, advice, and guidance to countries in their efforts to achieve global biodiversity targets in marine and coastal areas. The Initiative, the subject of an event held during the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 15), achieves these aims through such activities as the SOI Global Dialogue with Regional Seas Organizations and Regional Fishery Bodies and the SOI Training of Trainers programme.

The 13 December event also addressed the role of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF) for Ocean-related capacity building and potential future directions for the SOI, which seeks to achieve a balance between the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal biodiversity.

Representatives from the Republic of Korea, Japan, and France discussed the support of their countries for Ocean-related and SOI activities, including: building organizational capacity and helping to foster opportunities for countries to enhance Ocean conservation, including through ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs); raising awareness regarding different tools to implement effective marine conservation actions; enhancing engagement with local communities; and a moratorium by the French government on deep sea mining and protection of 30% of its seabed.

Speakers also emphasized that the SOI builds capacity with tools like the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) to estimate species distribution, the SOI’s importance for building national and regional capacity for marine spatial management, and achieving 100% management of the Ocean, including sharing living Ocean resources, which requires cooperation from all stakeholders and Ocean management institutions.

Joseph Appiott, CBD Secretariat, presented a new CBD publication on the role of marine and coastal biodiversity in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), intended to give parties relevant information for implementing the GBF. He also discussed future SOI activities for the GBF and the role of the Ocean in GBF implementation, stressing crafting goals and targets that are generic and applicable to all biomes, and broader engagement of the Ocean community for addressing GBF capacity needs.

Another 13 December event provided a follow-up to a Joint Statement on Nature, People and Planet, signed by ten multilateral development banks (MDBs) at the Glasgow Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 26) in 2021, which recognizes that tackling global poverty, climate change, and drivers of nature and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked, and affirms the commitment of MDBs to further mainstream nature into their policies, analyses, investments, and operations. The side event described key developments in these efforts with respect to defining and tracking nature-positive investments, assessing nature-related risks, and approaches and opportunities for valuing nature in economic planning and decision making.

Other 13 December side events examined:

• how nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate action and experiences from partner countries can contribute towards successful implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the GBF, specifically how Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries are including NbS in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to secure biodiversity benefits and equity; and
• joint efforts to promote biosafety through multi-country cooperation, including between Mongolia, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, the Korea Institute for Promoting Asia Biosafety Cooperation, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) covered selected side events at the UN Biodiversity Conference, which convened from 7-19 December 2022 in Montreal, Canada.