Biodiversity COP17 sees few leaders and little media

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Heads of State largely absent, sparse media attention… The COP17 on biodiversity opened in Armenia to a notable lack of interest. Many scientists and conservationists worry that the collapse of living systems is not getting the attention it deserves.

Deforestation, species extinctions, sprawling monocultures — across the planet the state of biodiversity is dire. Equally troubling is the indifference many show toward that decline. As the biodiversity conference opened in Yerevan, Armenia, on October 19, researchers and conservation actors lamented how little space the collapse of life occupies in public debate.

Mobilization around biodiversity is muted compared with the attention climate issues attract, even at this biennial global meeting. That lower profile appears in thin media coverage and the scarcity of high-profile political figures on site. “It’s a vicious circle,” says Clément Helary, forests campaigner for Greenpeace France. “The less political attention there is, the less media attention follows. If Emmanuel Macron went to Armenia, this COP would almost certainly get far more coverage.”

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Out of the convention’s 196 parties, only about ten heads of state were expected to attend — and Emmanuel Macron was not among them. France’s environment ambassador Barbara Pompili led the French delegation; the minister of ecological transition and biodiversity, Monique Barbut, planned to be present only during the final days, from October 28 to 30. By contrast, the last climate COP drew nearly 60 heads of state, and in 2015 there were 142 presidential or prime ministerial visits.

Why the apparent indifference? “When you’re a head of state or a minister, there’s less reputational incentive to go to this COP because it gets less commentary,” explains Philippe Grandcolas, an ecologist and research director at the CNRS. That reduced spotlight means leaders face less pressure from civil society to show up.

Following this lack of public urgency, states are falling short of the targets set by the Kunming–Montreal agreement — the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris climate accord. That framework aims to halt nature’s destruction by 2030 through measures such as ending pesticide overuse, restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems and protecting 30% of land and ocean areas.

While COP17 was expected to take stock of progress, both U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and Astrid Schomaker, the U.N. biodiversity lead, have already signaled delays. “Less than half of national biodiversity targets are on track,” Guterres warned ahead of the meeting, noting “a gap between ambition and action.” That diagnosis mirrors critiques often made about climate pledges as well.

Journalistic coverage of biodiversity is also criticized. Sabine Ndzengue Amoa, a legal consultant specializing in environmental law and president of the Association for the Protection of Biodiversity, points out the contrast with climate reporting: “There’s much more media noise around the climate COP,” she says.

Investigations such as the spring 2025 report by Arrêt sur images concluded that the collapse of living diversity “remains depressingly absent from the media, especially in right-leaning newspapers,” and even more so in far-right outlets where climate skepticism is common. When biodiversity does appear in the press, it often gets pushed down the editorial agenda by more immediate crises and dramatic news items.

Part of the explanation lies in the complexity of the subject. “Biodiversity encompasses thousands of species, a variety of ecosystems and different responsible actors — mining companies, industrial agriculture, intensive fishing,” lists Clément Helary. That diffuse and technical nature makes it harder to convey succinctly to broad audiences.

Biodiversity loss is also hard to personify. Decline and disappearance are often invisible: extinction is not a moment most people can see. There is a silence where once birds sang. By contrast, climate disruption produces vivid, unmistakable imagery — monoculture plantations burning, droughts stoking wildfires, floods, recurring heatwaves — which make the emergency tangible.

“When we discuss the sixth mass extinction in workshops like the Climate Fresk, participants recognize it’s complex, but it doesn’t resonate,” says Célia Fontaine, a facilitator with the association. “They don’t have a concrete image of what it means. The numbers are abstract, so it’s difficult to grasp — you have to use cognitive biases to make people care.”

Anthropologist Philippe Descola echoes that view: in France “we lack a cultural representation of biodiversity. It’s not part of everyday conversation. ‘Nature’ is vague; ‘life’ is generic; ‘biodiversity’ sounds theoretical.” A handful of charismatic species sometimes stir emotion and attention, but that focus can obscure the broader variety of life. “That leads to treating mass extinction as largely a patrimonial or moral problem,” he says.

Yet the services ecosystems provide are countless and essential, stresses Jean-Christophe Avarre, director of ecology and biodiversity at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). He points to pollination and disease regulation: “Without insect pollinators we couldn’t produce our food. Without certain wasps, some fig trees wouldn’t be pollinated.”

Fontaine adds that the public rarely connects biodiversity loss with consequences such as rising food prices. That lack of linkage stems from how disconnected many societies are from living systems. “In cities and rural areas alike, people are disconnected and don’t perceive systemic links,” she says. Exceptions include farmers, scientists and Indigenous peoples — notably in countries such as Brazil and Canada — whose voices and participation in COP negotiations are critical.

Within French civil society, biodiversity often plays a secondary role in mobilizations that center on climate. While the topic appears in demands at marches, only some organizations make it their centerpiece. The Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO), for instance, has placed biodiversity collapse at the heart of its advocacy, calling for political responses commensurate with the emergency. Still, growing weariness toward political inaction risks feeding public discouragement over time.