Global leaders and United Nations officials gathered in Yerevan for the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, launching a high-level biodiversity summit to address lagging global conservation targets and accelerate practical action.
The Leaders for Nature summit convened at the Meridian Exhibition and Event Center in Yerevan, bringing together heads of state, government ministers, and international organization representatives ahead of the broader COP17 negotiations.
Up to 15,000 participants from 196 countries are expected to attend the biodiversity conference as delegates assess humanity’s collective performance on environmental treaties. The summit has brought together leaders from more than a dozen countries, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, alongside leaders from several Central Asian and African nations, more than fifty high-ranking officials, scientists, and indigenous community leaders. Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Abisoghomonyan confirmed that Turkey is represented by its Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, who is expected to hold meetings with leaders attending the summit. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also accompanied President Pezeshkian to Yerevan. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze arrived on an official visit on October 15–16 at the invitation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and was met at Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport by Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan. Kobakhidze travelled to Yerevan with a delegation including Georgian Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture Davit Songhulashvili and Head of the Government Administration Levan Zhorzholiani. Participating leaders took a group photo, where Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President of the Republic Vahagn Khachaturyan welcomed UN Secretary-General António Guterres, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Kobakhidze, President of Zanzibar Hussein Ali Mwinyi, Speaker of the National Council of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Azouz Nasri, and Secretary General of the International Organisation of La Francophonie Louise Mushikiwabo, while Minister of Environment Hambardzum Matevosyan welcomed other heads of delegation.
United Nations Leadership Demands Accelerated Delivery
Marking four years since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told delegates in Yerevan that the world is only halfway toward its 2030 targets and must show more action, more speed, and more will.
Halfway to 2030, Yerevan is our moment of accountability.
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General
Guterres noted that nearly 90 percent of parties to the convention have established national biodiversity targets, but he stressed that leaders must provide political direction, financial backing, and societal involvement across all sectors. He emphasized that water, air, and soil are gifts of biodiversity that everyone benefits from daily, and that both state institutions and civil society must be involved in implementing solutions, noting that the participation of young people and the involvement of women are extremely important.
Armenia Confronts Domestic Environmental Recovery
Opening the summit, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reflected on his country’s environmental journey, pointing to severe resource extraction during the socio-economic and energy crises of the early 1990s when widespread deforestation and poaching threatened Lake Sevan fish stocks. Pashinyan recalled that in the early 1990s, when import and production chains collapsed and Armenia faced daily food shortages, Lake Sevan’s whitefish came to the rescue and served as one of the main sources of food for the population, though this brought the lake’s fish stocks to the brink of depletion alongside the exclusive Sevan trout and its four subspecies.
Pashinyan highlighted major conservation milestones achieved since his administration took office, noting that after the popular, non-violent, velvet revolution in 2018, one of his first directives was to halt illegal logging. The government also introduced fishing regulations and established a water police force, resulting in the total stock, or biomass, of whitefish in Lake Sevan increasing more than tenfold over the past decade—rising from a crisis level of a few hundred tons in the mid-2010s to over 4,500 tons as of July 2026. Furthermore, the government is implementing a program in Lake Sevan to restore fish stocks and develop fish farming, and local individuals who previously used vehicles to transport illegal timber discovered they could earn more with greater ease by using those same vehicles to transport tourists into the forests and mountains.
Regional Conflict Impacts and Cross-Border Cooperation
Addressing the intersection of geopolitics and ecology, Pashinyan emphasized that military conflicts inflict heavy collateral damage on ecosystems through minefields, deforestation for fortification, and polluted landscapes. He stated that the domestic impact of the conflict on biodiversity is evident, noting that an energy crisis following conflict resulted in thousands of hectares of forests being cut down in Armenia, poaching depleted Lake Sevan fish stocks, and unplanned construction of defensive and fortification structures altered natural environments where forests interfered with defense requirements. He added that many animals simply blow up on minefields in conflict zones, and that conflicts often rule out cooperation on biodiversity issues.
At the same time, regional leaders discussed the potential for shared natural resources to bridge diplomatic divides, with Pashinyan noting that peace and biodiversity are of great importance and that environmental issues are part of the peace process. Following the initialing of a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, environmental issues will be addressed more extensively, and Armenia has a very positive dialogue with Turkey based on cooperation in water resource management despite lacking diplomatic relations. There have been no reports of representatives from Azerbaijan arriving in Yerevan, while Baku has remained silent on Pashinyan’s proposal to resolve the issue of enclaves along the shared border through a land swap, which Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan told reporters remains theoretical.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that military actions and attacks on energy infrastructure pose serious cross-border threats because nature does not recognize political boundaries, adding that the war initiated by the United States and what he called the “Zionist regime” threatened ecosystems through the destruction of energy facilities, fires, and the release of pollutants.
Adoption of the Yerevan Declaration
Participants adopted the Yerevan Declaration, entitled Taking Action for Nature,
which reaffirms international commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity and to the effective implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, with its mission of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and its vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050.