To Protect Biodiversity Global Policy Makers Must Reject Emphasis on Market-based Mechanisms and Promote Community-led Solutions

[Panama City, October 20, 2025] – Global policymakers must urgently rethink their reliance on so-called “nature-based solutions” — including biodiversity offsets and other market-driven approaches to biodiversity loss and climate change — and instead support community-led, rights-based strategies that genuinely protect ecosystems and people. That was the call issued today by the Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) and the Global Forest Coalition (GFC) at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s SBSTTA-27 meeting in Panama City (October 20–24). The groups warned that carbon and biodiversity trading schemes are failing both people and the planet, and urged governments to redirect decisions toward community-driven, gender-responsive, and human rights-based approaches. Reall ecological resilience depends on empowering communities — not commodifying nature.

Market-based solutions are a greenwashing monster used to delay effective and just action. Big conservation NGOs and extractive industry lobbies promote market-based mechanisms at climate and biodiversity conferences to accelerate the destruction of nature, while Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and youth are dispossessed

In a context where urgent action is required to address the structural causes of biodiversity loss, GJEP and GFC observe a deliberate promotion in biodiversity negotiations of false solutions to the crisis that fail to contribute to solving the projected collapse of ecosystem functions. 

“Market-based solutions are a greenwashing monster used to delay effective and just action. Big conservation NGOs and extractive industry lobbies promote market-based mechanisms at climate and biodiversity conferences to accelerate the destruction of nature, while Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and youth are dispossessed,” said Heather Lee of Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP). “These profit-based fake solutions must be immediately ended, and policies that bring equity, justice, inclusion and reparations to communities must be prioritized.”

“Systemic change and gender justice are essential to address the global interconnected crises. Deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change are not going to be solved with band-aid solutions. French oil giant Total allocates US$100 million annually to ‘nature-based solutions’ projects, while devastating peoples’ livelihoods and nature with drilling projects like the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda. Why keep promoting nature-based solutions if they are used by corporations and big conservation NGOs to justify destruction? We need more holistic and intersectional approaches, environmental justice and systemic change to save forests and biodiversity,” said Valentina Figuera Martinez of GFC.

“Human rights violations, land grabbing, and entrenched inequalities are not going to be solved with generic schemes that are not aligned with the cosmovision and traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. ‘Mainstreaming nature-based solutions’ and market-based schemes into national planning instruments is the wrong path to save forests and keep ecological balance. We, Indigenous communities, already have our own ancestral conservation practices that need to be supported, promoted, financed and scaled up,” said Geodisio Castillo, an Indigenous Gunadule researcher with the Center for Environmental and Human Development (CENDAH) in Panama.

 

About Global Forest Coalition:

The Global Forest Coalition is a non-profit organisation with over 140 member groups worldwide dedicated to advocating for equitable, gender-just, and rights-based climate policies, with a focus on protecting forests and the communities that depend on them.

About Global Justice Ecology Project

GJEP is an international non-profit organisation founded in 2003 dedicated to protecting forests and advancing the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and forest based communities. Their advocacy includes amplifying the voices of communities and peoples on the front lines of the biodiversity and climate crises through diverse media including photography, video, audio and other.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Steve Taylor, steve@globaljusticeecology.org,  / Megan Morrissey, +12023656900, megan@globalforestcoalition.org  

18 Oct, 2025
Posted in Press releases, Gender Justice and Forests