The Link Between Biodiversity Loss and Poverty: A Q&A With Tony Siantonas and Margarita Guerra for COP16
As the United Nations Biodiversity Conference takes place in Colombia, two TechnoServe leaders discuss how nature supports the livelihood of farmers.
The United Nations Biodiversity Conference–COP16–is being held in Cali, Colombia, from October 21 to November 1, 2024. Delegates from around the world are meeting to discuss the policies, investments, and partnerships required to protect nature and preserve biodiversity.
To understand what is at stake at COP16, how biodiversity loss impacts poverty in rural communities, and how TechnoServe’s regenerative business projects protect biodiversity, we spoke to two of the organization’s delegates at the conference. Tony Siantonas is the global director for regenerative business, and Margarita Guerra is a regional program director and TechnoServe’s lead in Colombia.
The interview below has been condensed and adapted.
Q: How does biodiversity affect poverty?
Tony: It’s such an important aspect for us at TechnoServe. What we’ve got to think about, first and foremost, is the livelihoods of those we’re working with: our clients on the ground—farmers and small businesses…Many of those businesses are set in areas of biodiverse landscapes. They depend on nature to not only exist but actually to make a profit.
So it matters because if you can’t have healthy soils, clean water, and access to pollinators, you can’t actually have a successful business. Take, for example, something like producing fruit. You can’t produce fruit unless you have healthy pollinators around you. They need habitats to live in. And we need to look after them. Pollinators provide a huge service to businesses out there.
So what we’re really thinking about here is saying that biodiversity and poverty are interlinked because ultimately, if we help protect, restore, and enhance nature, then we’re going to help our clients on the ground–farmers and small businesses–to ensure that they can grow what they need and keep increasing the income they need to address poverty.
Q: Just as small farmers and small businesses depend on biodiversity and nature, they can also be stewards of them. I’m wondering if you could talk briefly about what roles smallholder farmers and small businesses can play in protecting biodiversity.
Tony: I think…many of the farms that we’re working with, they’re family farms. We know that the role of many families and farms is to look after the land for the next generation, and that means that they want to look after the natural assets they’ve got there…
[F]orests and trees play a really important role on farms. If we don’t look after those assets, we don’t have shade for coffee or cocoa plantations, and we don’t have the pollinators I was just talking about. So farmers recognize that looking after the natural assets that they have is vital if they’re going to be able to pass down a healthy farm to their kids. And so, ultimately, it’s part and parcel of a healthy farming business.
Q: Margarita, I was wondering if you could speak to what regenerative business programs TechnoServe is implementing in Colombia.
Margarita: So first, I want to say that agriculture and food processing play a fundamental role, not only in Colombia, but also in Latin America [more broadly], not only as economic drivers, but also as a key factor in the fight against climate change and for biodiversity conservation.
Agri- small and medium enterprises and agri-tech startups in Latin America and Colombia can have a great impact on the biodiversity, climate, and environment, as well as a social inclusion [stakeholder. But] the agri-small and growing businesses and the agri-tech startups are limited in their potential in Colombia and Latin America due to the lack of access to skilled, smart capital and market connections, and by an ecosystem that needs further development.
We, as the TechnoServe organization, are particularly supporting the growth of these segments due to our experience and real-life networks in Latin America and globally in entrepreneurship, regenerative business, food processing systems, tech, corporate, and public partnerships.
So, especially for Colombia, we are launching the first program for food processors and agri-tech accelerators. This program is not only going to be in Colombia, but also in Guatemala and Mexico. The first part is going to be supporting small and medium enterprise food processors–this program is called Potencia tu Agroempresa.
The second one is an accelerator supporting agri-food tech accelerator startups called CultivateNext.
Q: What is being discussed at COP16?
Tony: One of the really important challenges that the world has at the moment on nature is how countries can put in place the money necessary to help finance the changes and support that we were just talking about earlier. A few years ago, what was agreed at the biodiversity COP was the importance of the idea of the 30X30 Initiative. It’s this worldwide initiative where governments are designating about 30% of the land and ocean areas as protected by 2030…
So, this year at the COP, there’s going to be a lot of discussions about how to implement that global agreement by putting in the money necessary. And naturally, that always gets tricky. A few years ago, they were saying that they needed about $20 billion a year allocated to this. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of discussions about the funding gap….
TechnoServe is engaged because we’re an implementer. We’re helping to get [regenerative business initiatives] done on the ground, so we can represent the voice of businesses on the ground as we see it, the voice of those farmers, of their economic needs. We can help give that message to negotiators so that they can see that there is potential here and, ideally, help elevate a more beneficial outcome to all of these negotiations between countries that are taking place during the conference.
Q: Let’s say it’s early November, and they’re writing the headlines about COP16. What would you like to see? What would success look like?
Tony: I think there are a few aspects to what success looks like. Firstly, success is around continued global prioritization of the role of nature and looking after nature.
And I think the COP should demonstrate that countries are continuing to make commitments toward funding and protecting nature based on what I was just talking about.
But I think the other outcome for COP has to be about the clients that we serve: farmers, but also Indigenous peoples, local communities, many of those constituents who are expecting to see discernible change for them on the ground. So I think that success at COP will see those people coming out and saying that we understand that the agreements, the commitments, and the finance are actually going to make a difference in our lives.
Q: What does it mean to Colombia to be hosting COP16?
Margarita: It is really great, great, news to have COP16 here in Colombia…. Colombia was selected at the COP16 venue because of our commitment to biodiversity conservation and our leadership in the environmental agenda worldwide.
In addition, Colombia is recognized as one of the countries on the planet with the most biodiversity. Colombia is going to become the epicenter of global action, bringing together leaders and experts to address the greatest challenge of our era: protecting our planet and ensuring a sustainable future…
Colombia is considered one of the most biodiversity countries in the world, with more than 300 types of continental and marine ecosystems…We are very proud of this. COP16 is considered the most important event that Colombia and our Colombian people have hosted in the last 15 years. More than 50,000 attendees, including 12 heads of state and more than 100 environmental ministers, are expected to attend.
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