30th Nov - 10th Dec 2011

COP 17 meeting in Durban, South Africa

AFSA launch in Durban, South Africa - 4th December 2011 at Howard College, University of KwaZulu-Natal, SHEPSTONE BUILDING (SH12)

1st - 8th September 2011

ABN Re-visioning meeting to be held in Namanga, Kenya.

12 - 21st June 2011

The ABN Biennial conference held in Nanyuki, Kenya with over 40 participants attending the meeting from various ABN Partner organizations.

20th May 2011 - Tanzanian NGO's against GMO foods

The ABN Advocacy programme has been conducting national Biosafety workshops in East Africa to inject momentum to our Anti GMO Campaign. Earlier this week we were in Tanzania and ended the discussions with government, CSOs, media and agencies with a press conference. Click here to read more from the Tanzania Daily News.

COP 16, CANCUN, Mexico - December 2010

Anne Maina (ABN), Gebremedhine Birega (Ethiopian Society for Consumer Protection), Geoffrey Kamese from the National Association of Professional Environmentalists in Uganda (NAPE) and Teresa Anderson (Gaia Foundation) attended the Climate COP in Cancun for ABN, November 29 – December 10. ABN was successful in lobbying against the inclusion of carbon offsets for GM crops and biochar. ABN has been following this issue since before Copenhagen, where by lobbying delegates, we successfully removed harmful text from the negotiations on Agriculture, REDD and CDM. However, in the last days of Copenhagen, new text appeared under the LULUCF section that included dangerous language on “soil carbon sequestration” under the CDM. In Cancun, ABN successfully worked to have this text removed from the final paper.

In the final plenary, Anne Maina of ABN spoke to world leaders on behalf of the environmental NGOs. In her statement, she rejected false solutions and carbon markets, and highlighted the threat to Africa from the current Cancun Agreement. The pledges made under the Cancun Agreement could lead to a 3-5 degree C rise globally, and up to 6.5 degrees rise in large land masses such as Africa.

The 10th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (COP 10), Nagoya, Japan - October 2010

The 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) was attended by ABN Trustee and Director of Melca Ethiopia, Million Belay, on behalf of the network. Established at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entering into force in December 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity is an international treaty for the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. Million shared daily blogs from Nagoya with the ABN and allies, where he highlighted the ongoing alarming rates of extinction of the Earths plants and animals; the developments on recognising the critical importance of protecting sacred sites; and the vital role of biodiversity and related indigenous knowledge in mitigating and adapting to climate change. The meeting concluded with three priorities:

- adoption of a new ten year Strategic Plan to guide international and national efforts to save biodiversity through enhanced action to meet the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity;

- a resource mobilization strategy that provides the way forward to a substantial increase to current levels of official development assistance in support of biodiversity;

- a new international protocol on access to and sharing of the benefits from the use of the genetic resources of the planet.

The importance of better integrating the biodiversity agenda with that of climate change and land degradation was emphasized in a programme of events and activities which Million participated. 2010 was the International Year of Biodiversity. 

Climate, Seed and Knowledge meeting, Ethiopia, November 2010

In November 2010 the ABN held a Climate, Seed and Knowledge meeting in Ethiopia. The meeting brought together 30 participants from 12 countries; - Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal, Cote d’ivore, Zimbabwe, Australia, Sweden and United Kingdom. These comprised the farmers from communities that ABN partners, funding partners, staff members of the ABN partner organizations and the Secretariat.

The ABN partners who had been piloting the Climate, Seed and Knowledge (CSK) programme gathered to share their experiences and learn from each other and gain inspiration from Ethiopian communities who have retained their outstanding traditional knowledge on seed diversity. They also analyzed how the seed context was changing and the implications of this and sought to see how their seed work fits into the bigger picture. They shared and discussed the community documentation tools which they had prepared for the meeting – the eco-maps and calendars. The participants also agreed on the next steps for the ABN seed work and that of the individual partners and allies who had been invited.

View the photo gallery from the Climate, Seed, Knowledge meeting.

UN Convention of Biological Diversity, Nairobi, May 2010

In May, members of the ABN's advocacy team attended the negotiations of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nairobi. The team worked with international allies, to help support African negotiators on key issues around biodiversity and agriculture - in particular biofuels, GM crops, biochar and geo-engineering. 

12th International Congress of EthnoBiology, Tofino, Canada, May 2010