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The UN Convention on Biological Diversity has opened its official reporting system to communities, cities, NGOs and businesses for the first time
The move aims to capture conservation work beyond national governments under the global biodiversity framework agreed in 2022
Indigenous and civil society groups have welcomed the shift but warn of barriers to access and risks of corporate greenwashing
Experts say safeguards will be needed to ensure equity, verification and meaningful inclusion in biodiversity accounting
Indigenous communities, local governments and civil society groups will, for the first time, be able to formally report their biodiversity work to the United Nations, after the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) widened access to its global reporting platform.
The CBD has opened its official Online Reporting Tool (ORT) to actors beyond national governments, allowing communities, cities, organisations and businesses to submit information on their biodiversity actions under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).
Until now, only national governments were permitted to submit reports to the CBD. As a result, the global picture of biodiversity action was shaped largely by what governments chose to report, even though much of the work on the ground has been carried out by communities, civil society organisations, local authorities and, increasingly, the private sector.
In countries such as India, official reporting has typically focused on government-led programmes, including protected areas, national missions, environment and forest department schemes, and centrally sponsored projects.
While these submissions reflected policy intent and official action, they often overlooked community-led conservation initiatives, traditional farming and seed systems, local restoration efforts, and independent research and civil society work.
To address this gap, the CBD Secretariat has now activated a new feature in the ORT that allows non-government actors to voluntarily submit information on how their activities support National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and the KMGBF, adopted in 2022 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
Eligible contributors include Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), cities and local governments, non-governmental organisations and research institutions, women’s and youth groups, businesses and financial institutions, as well as sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
In a statement, the CBD Secretariat said the move was intended to support a “whole-of-society approach”, recognising that biodiversity action does not take place through governments alone.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities have long argued that they protect and manage a significant share of the world’s biodiversity through traditional knowledge, customary practices and local governance systems, yet their contributions have often been poorly reflected in official reporting mechanisms.
Neema Pathak Broome, international policy coordinator at the ICCA Consortium and a member of Kalpavriksh, told Down To Earth (DTE) the move was a welcome step, but only if communities are able to report independently.
Without serious efforts to make the system accessible, the benefits for IPLCs could remain limited, Pathak Broome warned. “Unless there are real attempts to create awareness about this tool, simplify the reporting process and ensure language accessibility. It will still have limited value for indigenous people and local communities,” she added.
At recent CBD meetings, Indigenous delegates have welcomed stronger recognition of their rights, while also expressing frustration over slow progress on funding and meaningful inclusion in monitoring and decision-making processes.
Wildlife conservationist Vivek Menon, founder and executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, said holding governments solely responsible for protecting nature was “short-sighted”.
“Civil society, including IPLCs, does a major share of the work,” he told DTE. “If this is captured, a more holistic picture of biodiversity conservation will emerge.”
The decision to open the reporting platform to businesses and financial actors has also raised concerns among experts.
While allowing companies to report on biodiversity actions could improve transparency and encourage better practices, critics warn that, without strong safeguards, the platform could become a space for corporate greenwashing — where companies highlight small voluntary initiatives while continuing environmentally damaging activities elsewhere.
Pathak Broome said the risk was particularly acute in situations where companies are already in conflict with IPLCs. “Corporations involved in land, water and resource grabbing could still claim to be contributing to biodiversity conservation,” she said.
She added that monitoring criteria for corporate submissions must explicitly address issues of equity and justice. Without this, she warned, the reporting system could present a distorted picture in which corporate actions dominate visibility, while the contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities remain marginalised.
The submissions to the platform are voluntary, and it remains unclear how the CBD will verify claims, prevent double counting, or distinguish genuine biodiversity outcomes from marketing and reputational claims.