Latest Resources
28 March 2023
REFLECTIONS FROM ZIMBABWEAN FARMERS ON WEST AFRICA PEASANTS’ SEED FAIR
The 7th annual West Africa Peasants’ Seed Fair, hosted by the West African Committee for Farmers’ Seeds (Comité Ouest Africain de Semences Paysannes – COASP), was held in Zoungbonou, Benin, from 9-11 March 2023, bringing together 75 exhibitors from 25 countries, predominantly from the West African community but also including farmers from East Africa, government officials and […]
3 March 2023
Agroecology advocacy meeting held in Suurbraak
In February, together with the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) and Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the ACB hosted a meeting in Suurbraak, Western Cape, bringing together a network of farmer and civil society organisations to discuss a strategy to approach government to support agroecology. Through the lens of advocacy, and a focus on the challenges facing […]
3 March 2023
GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK AND SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR BIOSAFETY AND BIODIVE...
– By ACB Research and Advocacy Officer Sabrina Masinjila & Executive Director Mariam Mayet For several years, the ACB has engaged at multiple levels with the development of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). In the lead up to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conservation’s fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP 15), held in Montreal, Canada in […]
1 March 2023
ACB at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15)
The 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) was held in Montreal, Canada, 7-19 December. Governments from around the world came together to work towards an agreement on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 to halt and reverse nature loss. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted during COP 15 […]
26 January 2023
Zimbabwean smallholder farmers show us the way towards alternative food systems
– by Dr Stephen Greenberg These reflections come from attending a farmer exchange in October 2022, hosted by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Zimbabwe, in collaboration with Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisation (TSURO) and Community Technology Development Organisation (CTDO). The 35 participants, including farmers, non-government organisations […]
5 December 2022
The Africa we want?
A NEO-IMPERIALIST FOOD REGIME REINFORCED BY AGENDA 2063, THE UNFCCC, AND THE CBD Closely linked to this work, is a five part series of interconnected briefing papers which reflect on the inability of both the UNFCCC and the CBD, to address collapsing socio-ecological systems and rather, its complicity in re-embedding geopolitical inequality, debt, and underdevelopment […]
2 December 2022
Extractive tourism – a case study of biodiversity conservation in Tanzania, a legacy of gross hum...
This paper is part of a series of briefings by the African Centre for Biodiversity in the lead-up to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in December in Montreal, where a new deal – the Global Biodiversity Framework – will be finalised. In this paper, we deal with […]
2 December 2022
Civil society and farmer network organisations call on the South African Department of Agricultur...
This is the main thrust of the open letter we sent to Minister Thoko Didiza today, with Biowatch, Environmental Monitoring Group, the Association for Rural Advancement, and Tshintsha Amakhaya. So far 50 organisations have endorsed the letter. This letter is intended to push the Department to engage systematically and meaningfully with CSOs, including household and […]
2 December 2022
EXTRACTIVE TOURISM. A case study of biodiversity conservation in Tanzania, a legacy of gross huma...
This paper is part of a series of briefings by the African Centre for Biodiversity in the lead-up to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in December in Montreal, where a new deal – the Global Biodiversity Framework – will be finalised. In this paper, we deal with […]
29 November 2022
The changing nature of Kenya’s seed sector: lessons from the potato seed industry
In this paper, we discuss the changes taking place in the Kenyan seed sector, with a focus on potato. The changes paint an extremely disturbing picture of how draconian agricultural and seed laws and policies are undermining smallholder farmers and their seed and food systems. These laws and policies form part of the architecture that […]