The riots in France have shown up the Leftist claim that enough public spending and 'integration' will produce a happy, peaceful society as a dangerous fiction. But is anyone paying attention, asks Matt Roberts.
On Monday, in Yerevan, Armenia, Cuba presented its priorities for the conservation of biological diversity during the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The conference, held from October 19 to 30, 2026, serves as the first review meeting on the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Daimar Cánovas, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA), highlighted that Cuba’s National Biodiversity Program—with a vision toward 2030—is aligned with the global agreement adopted at COP15 in 2022, which aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, with specific targets set for 2030 and long-term goals for 2050.
Cánovas González participated in an event titled “Yerevan Call for Positive Incentives for Biodiversity,” which also saw the launch of the Friends of Target 18 group and the “Biodiversity Financing Challenge,” held as part of the High-Level Segment of COP17.
The Deputy Minister explained that one of Cuba’s key environmental priorities is the need to reformulate economic and financial incentives that currently have a negative impact on biodiversity. The goal is to transform these into mechanisms that promote conservation, ecosystem restoration, and the sustainable use of natural resources.
In this context, the country has begun an assessment within the agricultural sector—a strategic sector, alongside mining, fisheries, and tourism—to evaluate incentives linked to Target 18 of the Kunming-Montreal Framework.
Cánovas also highlighted the process of greening the national banking system, an initiative promoted as a financial solution and supported by the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN). This initiative promotes the integration of environmental criteria into banking policies and products.
Identified opportunities include positive incentives linked to agroecology, the restoration of productive landscapes, the protection of coastal and marine ecosystems, agrotourism, and nature-based economic activities.
Furthermore, Cuba plans to promote credit lines for biodiversity, sustainable financial instruments, and support mechanisms for producers, cooperatives, MSMEs, and businesses that adopt practices compatible with the conservation and rational use of natural resources.
These actions will contribute to meeting the national targets of the National Biodiversity Program through 2030, as well as the commitments Cuba has made under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, while strengthening resource mobilization and financial sustainability.
The session was attended by the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Astrid Schomaker, and the President of COP17, Hambardzum Matevosyan—who serves as the Minister of Environment of Armenia—along with other officials from the host country.
#COP17 | With 40% of the world’s land degraded, delegates in Mongolia are negotiating a stronger global response to drought and desertification. Science, financing and land restoration are at the center of talks running through Aug. 28.#UNCCD#Mongolia#ClimateActionpic.twitter.com/uFdPwt0s6L
Social media platforms in Germany will be required to ensure 20% of news feed journalistic content is 'diversity-certified' by the Government under draconian new laws designed to combat the 'far Right', says Eugyppius.
The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty
Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.
The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.
Boomer and Gen X 'progressives' have been conditioned to view mass immigration through the outdated lens of 1980s race politics and much smaller 20th century flows, preventing constructive debate, says Andrew Devine.
Meet Shareefa Energy, the partly taxpayer funded poet who kicked Reform's Rupert Matthews out of an anti-racism workshop allegedly because he was white. Though on this evidence, 'poet' is stretching it, says Steven Tucker.
In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action
When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.
I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.
As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps
Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.
Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.
Four years ago nearly every government on Earth agreed to protect nature. Now, as countries gather for Cop17, the pressure is on to follow through on those commitments
Passersby could smell the dead fish before they saw them. In August, more than 3,000 pike, roach, carp and rudd were found lifeless along the River Wensum in Norwich. Some gasped for air in their final moments, desperate for the oxygen that heatwave conditions had depleted in the water. Investigators believe that the die-off was triggered by heavy rainfall that flushed through high concentrations of pollution at a time when wildlife were already struggling.
The 45-mile (70km) chalk river is one of about 250 in the country. They are a geological accident almost unique to Britain – and one of Earth’s rarest habitats. They emerge from chalk aquifers and are home to species such as freshwater shrimp, otters and stoneflies, also providing drinking water for millions of people. But just 11 have formal protection, with many ravaged by sewage pollution and overextraction. The Norfolk river is one of the few that does have legal protection, but it is in poor ecological health.
This month, nearly every country on Earth will return to the question of how to stem the rapid destruction of the natural world. Humans are driving it, but so far we have not found a way to stop it.
In late 2022, governments reached an ambitious once-in-a-decade deal to better protect nature amid scientific warnings that the planet is going through the largest loss of life since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now, they are assessing their progress on the targets for the first time.
Spar pilot scheme will test whether heirloom fruit can thrive in today’s commercial and environmental conditions
Only about 10 of the 2,000 types of apples growing in Austria can be found in supermarkets among the polished, pristine fruit usually on display – a sad ratio according to fans of historic varieties being primed for a comeback.
One of the country’s biggest retail chains has embarked on a pilot rollout of unusual and long-forgotten apples enjoyed in previous centuries, riding an international trend of reviving heirloom fruit and vegetables.
Schools in north-eastern Italy have banned pork products in school meals to make them acceptable to Muslim migrants, meaning traditional dishes like prosciutto, porchetta and pasta all’amatriciana are off the menu.
Britain’s biggest employers set bold diversity targets – but has anyone checked the maths? Actuary Peter Crowley runs the numbers and finds the arithmetic rather less accommodating than the slogans.
University of Cambridge academics have demanded that the Jason Arday review considers the university's culpability in promoting him as "a success story" based on his race, disability and personal biography.
The BBC pays white staff less on average than their ethnic minority colleagues in every pay band bar one, stoking concerns about the impact of the corporation's diversity drive.
Anyone over the age of about 35 has no idea how far Western universities have fallen into the mire of DEI, collapsing standards and Left-wing monoculture, says Professor James Allan. It's time to sort them out.
A mosque in London with charitable status is facing an investigation after it published sermons encouraging husbands to strike their wives and condoning the execution of gay people by "throwing them off a tall building".
How successful is racial integration in Britain? The ultimate test, says James Hartwood, is living next door – which is when even small cultural differences are magnified to the max and tensions can boil over.
Apparently, African wild dogs enjoy knocking around balls of elephant dung like a football. It’s this playfulness that has endeared them to researchers—but, as Helen Sullivan points out, they have their work cut out for them trying to protect this persecuted big predator. Sullivan follows conservationists in southern Africa who are carefully managing tiny, isolated populations and attempting to introduce genetic diversity. The story of the three sisters who are flown over from Mozambique to be introduced to Waterberg—a South African municipality three hours from Johannesburg—is heart-wrenching. Yet in such a harsh environment, individual tragedies have to be endured while staying focused on the bigger picture: the fragile recovery of the species as a whole.
As we help Greyling and Hlako lift a crate off the pickup, a dusty paw flops out of one corner, and I think of something my uncle says: “You can smell the world in a dog’s paw.” Mooney and I back away, watching from inside a container as Hlako moves the car so that the overheating dog is in the shade. Though it is late afternoon, the temperature is still around 90 degrees.
Hlako and Greyling release the dogs one at a time, opening the crate and waiting until a dog walks, then trots, out. The first is less sure on her feet, the second seems almost normal, until Mooney points out that she would have run much faster from the crate and people had she not still been a bit dozy. The sisters stand together in a grassy area, point their noses in the air, move their satellite-dish ears and lie down under a thorn tree; it has been a long day.
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