African Centre for Biodiversity

08/10/2026

At the C*D’s COP17 in October, negotiations on the proposed Thematic Action Plan (TAP) could reshape international governance of synthetic biology.

Developing countries need support to protect biodiversity and exercise sovereign control over emerging technologies. However, this could create new dependencies through donor-driven research programmes, proprietary platforms, and commercial partnerships—ultimately ushering in synthetic biology uptake and deployment, without addressing structural drivers of biodiversity loss.

This briefing identifies safeguards that governments and civil society must defend and maps them onto the contested negotiating text, to ensure the C*D does not become a vehicle for normalising and financing the engineering of life.

Read our briefing here: https://t2m.io/C*D-COP17-future-of-synbio-governance-post-EN

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En la COP17 del CDB, que se celebrará en octubre, las negociaciones sobre el Plan de Acción Temático (TAP) propuesto podrían reconfigurar la gobernanza internacional de la biología sintética.

Los países en desarrollo necesitan apoyo para proteger la biodiversidad y ejercer un control soberano sobre las tecnologías emergentes. Sin embargo, este apoyo podría generar nuevas dependencias mediante programas de investigación impulsados por donantes, plataformas propietarias y alianzas comerciales, allanando en última instancia el camino para la incorporación y el despliegue de la biología sintética sin abordar los factores estructurales que impulsan la pérdida de biodiversidad.

Este documento informativo identifica las salvaguardas que los gobiernos y la sociedad civil deben defender y las vincula directamente con las disposiciones controvertidas del texto de negociación, con el fin de evitar que el CDB se convierta en un instrumento para normalizar y financiar la ingeniería de la vida.

Lee nuestro documento informativo aquí: https://t2m.io/C*D-COP17-future-of-synbio-governance-post-ES

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Lors de la COP17 de la CDB en octobre, les négociations sur le projet de Plan d’action thématique (TAP) pourraient remodeler la gouvernance internationale de la biologie synthétique.

Les pays en voie de développement ont besoin de soutien pour protéger la biodiversité et exercer un contrôle souverain sur les technologies émergentes. Cependant, cela pourrait créer de nouvelles dépendances via des programmes de recherche menés par les donateurs, des plateformes propriétaires et des partenariats commerciaux — conduisant finalement à l’adoption et au déploiement de la biologie synthétique, sans s’attaquer aux facteurs structurels de la perte de biodiversité.

Cette note d’orientation identifie les garanties que les gouvernements et la société civile doivent défendre et les associe aux parties contestées du texte de négociation, afin de s’assurer que la CDB ne devienne pas un vecteur de normalisation et de financement des formes de vie issues de la biotechnologie.

Consultez notre note d'information ici : https://t2m.io/C*D-COP17-future-of-synbio-governance-post-FR



Cover art: She Who Holds by Hlavutelo Ngobeni

30/09/2026

Our heartfelt congratulations to Southern Africa Rural Women's Assembly (RWA) on receiving the Right Livelihood Award, a powerful affirmation of what RWA has built through years of courageous, patient, and collective organising from below.

This honour belongs to the more than 178,000 rural women whose struggle for land, seed, bodily autonomy, and dignity has become an undeniable political force across Southern Africa. At a time when corporate power is tightening its grip on our food and seed systems, RWA has shown that another future is not only necessary, but already being created: through feminist agroecology, farmer-managed seed systems, solidarity, resistance, and the leadership of rural women themselves.

May this global recognition strengthen RWA’s voice, deepen its organising, and carry the struggles and demands of rural women even further. This is a victory for RWA, for rural women across our continent, and for all movements working towards food sovereignty, ecological justice, and freedom from corporate and patriarchal domination.

We salute you. We celebrate you. And we stand with you.

More here on RWA's work: https://youtu.be/mMMkC-Oc2LU?si=3xrJConlPfCTEqIx

RWA is holding an online press conference today at 11:00 CEST/SAST. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qHL_joNLSv6ipexk9wbXEw #/registration

Rural Women’s Assembly received the 2026 Right Livelihood Award “fo...

29/09/2026

There's still time to register! Join us this Thursday, 1PM (UTC) | 3PM (SAST) for our webinar:

Reprogramming life: Synthetic biology, digitalisation, AI, and the new battle for biodiversity | Webinar

Synthetic biology is extending genetic engineering beyond seeds and crops to encompass microorganisms, insects, and entire ecological processes, now combining with artificial intelligence, automation, and large-scale extraction of digital information. The webinar will provide a space to share experiences, explore how these technologies are reshaping the terrain of struggle, and collectively reflect on emerging strategies for resistance, solidarity, and action.

Ahead of , which will take place in the second half of October 2026, key decisions on synthetic biology are being discussed within the Convention on Biological Diversity — one of the current governance spaces where these debates are unfolding. This webinar will also provide an opportunity to unpack these developments and their implications for biodiversity, food systems, genetic resources, rights, equity, and the growing influence of corporate power over the future of life.

Register here:
https://t2m.io/synthbio_reg

Interpretation in Spanish and French will be provided.

More info here: https://t2m.io/synbio-webinar-EN-post

*D

28/09/2026

Biodiversity may sound technical, but it names something deeply familiar: the living world that makes life possible.

In a new blog post, ACB executive director Mariam Mayet shares our responses to the third draft of South Africa’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) and highlights why this draft deserves close public attention.

It can become another well-meaning policy document: strong on concern, weak on delivery. Or it can become a turning point, she emphasises. But above all, it must not turn biodiversity into a new frontier for markets, offsets, and private profit.

South Africa’s NBSAP will form part of the evidence at the upcoming , the next United Nations Biodiversity Conference, which will take place in Armenia this October. It will show whether government is turning promises into action, or arriving at with another plan that avoids the hard questions of power, money, land, food systems, rights, and accountability.

Read the blog here:
https://t2m.io/ACB-NBSAPs-submission-DFFE_post

23/09/2026

Don't forget to register for our upcoming webinar!

Reprogramming life: Synthetic biology, digitalisation, AI, and the new battle for biodiversity

Our expert presenters will be exploring:

- Beyond GMOs: Why synthetic biology, genome editing, and engineered conservation matter for everyone
- Digitalisation, AI, and DSI: Expanding corporate power over biodiversity and the future of life
- Engineered conservation: whose nature, whose rights?
- Synthetic biology at the C*D: Power, politics, and movement struggles

Thursday, 1 October
1PM (UTC) | 3PM (SAST)

Register here: https://t2m.io/synthbio_reg

Join us for this critical conversation as the struggle against genetically modified organisms enters a more dangerous and far-reaching phase.

More info here: https://t2m.io/synbio-webinar-EN-post

*D

21/09/2026

The African Centre for Biodiversity has made two recent submissions to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, calling on South Africa to strengthen its implementation of the Rotterdam Convention, including rejecting imports of carbosulfan and fenthion and taking final regulatory action to ban or severely restrict aluminium phosphide, dichlorvos, and amitraz.

Read both submissions here:
https://acbio.org.za/corporate-expansion/acb-submissions-call-for-stronger-action-on-hazardous-pesticides-under-the-rotterdam-convention/

21/09/2026

Register now for AFSA's preparatory webinar as we gear up for C*D !

ACB's Mariam Mayet will lead the discussion on assessing the implementation of National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans ( ): progress, gaps, and opportunities for transformative action in favour of biodiversity.

Join us tomorrow, 22 September, for this timely discussion

Time: 10AM (GMT) | 12PM (SAST)
Register: https://afsafrica-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/JyFvm8m1T2u2oac1mqWy6Q

16/09/2026

Join PAN Asia Pacific - PANAP's 16 Days of Global Action on Agroecology 2026, putting rural women and women farmers at the forefront of struggles for agroecology, food, land, and climate justice.

Campaign and toolkit available below.

📣Be part of the 16 Days of Global Action on Agroecology 2026!🌱

Join us from 1–16 October 2026, to build solidarity and action towards a future where rural women can exercise their rights, lead agroecological transformation and live free from hunger, toxic pesticides, violence, exploitation and climate injustice.

In 2026, the campaign will foreground rural women and women farmers in solidarity with the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026. This year’s theme “Unite, Resist, Transform: Rural Women Fighting for Agroecology, Food, Land, and Climate Justice”, recognise women’s indispensable yet often overlooked contributions across agrifood systems and to promote action on persistent inequities in land, finance, services, technology, education and decision-making.

🔗 Dive into the campaign + toolkit here: https://panap.net/2026/09/16-days-of-global-action-on-agroecology-2026-concept-note/

📩 Questions or ready to join? Contact us at [email protected]

15/09/2026

ACB has submitted comments on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s draft desk study: “The Effects of Seed Policies, Laws and Regulations on Farmers’ Ability to Access and Use Diverse, Locally Adapted Farmers’ Varieties and Landraces”.

We view this document as a good mapping out of the range of laws, policies, and regulatory approaches that seek, directly or indirectly, to accommodate farmers’ varieties and landraces, but emphasise the need for the final study to move beyond describing accommodating measures and rather subject each measure to sharper effects- and rights-based assessments.

The central question should be whether a measure enhances farmers’ access to and use of diverse, locally adapted seed in practice, or whether it narrows farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS) through registration, listing, marketing, quality-control, data, intellectual property, or harmonisation requirements.

FAO’s future work should be more explicitly farmer-led, gender-responsive, and context-specific, to more adequately determine whether models protect farmer autonomy, seed diversity, and community governance. This should entail documenting farmers’ lived experience of seed laws; examining the interaction between seed regulations, plant variety protection, digital catalogues, data systems, and regional harmonisation; and assessing whether legal reforms are expanding or constraining FMSS over time.

Read the full submission here: https://acbio.org.za/seed-sovereignty/effects-of-seed-policies-on-farmers-access-diverse-varieties-landraces/

15/09/2026

Missed our webinar on genetically engineered pesticides and RNA-based pest control?

Or want to watch it again? The recording is now available!

Watch it here: https://t2m.io/webinar-recording-GE-pesticides-RNA-based-pest-control

The webinar explored concerns around biosafety, food safety, ecological impacts, regulation and socio-economic consequences, particularly where biosafety oversight is weak, pesticide regulation is fragmented, and public awareness is limited.

It also examined whether these technologies risk reproducing the input-dependent model of chemical agriculture, rather than supporting a deeper transition towards agroecological systems and ecological pest management.

Find out more about the webinar: https://acbio.org.za/gm-biosafety/webinar-ge-pesticides-rna-based-pest-control/