The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Juan Cabandié, presented the National Declaration during the high-level segment as part of his participation in the COP15 on Biological Diversity, held in Montreal, Canada, under the Chinese presidency. During his speech, he underlined: “We are the green lung of the planet and we want to continue to be so. We must recognize the ecosystem services provided by the ecosystems of developing countries, because without our forests, our wetlands, our glaciers and our seas, the world would not be the same. It’s time for those most responsible for this crisis to start paying the debt they owe our planet and all of humanity.”

In this sense, Cabandié expressed: “We cannot demand the same from the 2,200 million inhabitants who live in poverty, as from the richest 1% of the population. We need these elites to sit down at the table, not as philanthropists, but as the main perpetrators of the environmental scourge and commit to bringing about the necessary changes.”

“It is the central countries that have destroyed their own ecosystems in pursuit of industrialization; then they brutally exploited the natural resources of Latin America, Africa and some Asian countries. Worse still, they have done it by pushing for a change of land use in our territories and for us to extend the agricultural frontier in order to satisfy their interests, and at the same time they are asking us for more ambition “.

“Argentina, which is the eighth largest country in the world, has more than 30% of the protected land territory. We did it with a lot of commitment and without any help to achieve it. We are also committed to conserving 30% of marine areas. We therefore expect reciprocity from central countries because to achieve this objective and others, developing countries need funding,” he said.

Towards the end of his speech, Cabandié once again underlined the responsibility of the countries of the center by affirming that “at least, they must finance 100 billion dollars per year for biodiversity actions on our territories”. “We insist on innovative mechanisms such as debt swaps or debt swaps for climate action for the 70 countries that could fall into a debt crisis,” he concluded.

As part of the Argentine Minister’s parallel activities at COP15, Cabandié also held bilateral meetings with the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi; with Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault; the Minister of the Environment of Chile, Maisa Rojas Corradi; and New Zealand Conservation Minister Hon Poto Williams.