Whose Genetic Resource Is It Anyway: Promises of the Cali Fund

By Krishna Priya

This Earth Day, a quiet revolution in global biodiversity finance is underway—one that could finally recognize the debt owed to indigenous communities.

As technology reshapes our daily lives, our connection to nature has grown increasingly tenuous. We no longer think of forests and soil as sources of life and sustenance—until, of course, a biotech company patents something that has always existed in nature. But communities that turn to the natural world for answers have always existed among us, and they have been historically excluded from voicing their needs and opinions. As we celebrate Earth Day—a time to reflect on our shared responsibility to the planet—questions of justice and equity are more urgent than ever amid catastrophic biodiversity loss. Launched following the COP16 under the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”), the Cali Fund (“the Fund”) presents us with a vital opportunity.

Few innovations have shaped modern life as profoundly as breakthroughs in medical and biotechnology. While human beings have relied on nature for centuries to treat a host of ailments, the commodification of nature to create effective medical interventions has led to a meteoric rise in both power and capital for biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The increasing wealth and influence of Big Pharma have been enabled by the rise of an increasingly competitive and robust patent regime, which turned ancient remedies into exclusive corporate assets. The biotech industry has historically turned to nature—from turmeric’s curcumin to neem’s benefits for developing cutting-edge interventions that help us prolong our own existence. While humanity at large has benefited from these interventions, we must ask whether these benefits have been distributed equitably. Most of these resources are located in tropical regions and countries that have been precariously positioned in the global world order due to persisting colonial legacies and extractive capitalism.

We must contextualize the COP16 discussions that concluded in Rome this February against this backdrop. The Cali Fund aims to compensate indigenous peoples and local communities for the utilization of genetic resources by entities that derive economic benefits from such use. Specifically, entities that use digital sequencing information (DSI) on genetic resources are expected to contribute to the fund, including large companies in DSI-dependent sectors such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agricultural biotechnology, industrial biotechnology, and related industries.

The Fund is tied to a bigger goal—the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), which aims to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and seas by 2030. The origins of the Cali Fund for Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from the use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources (DSI) can be traced back to Article 8 (j) of the CBD and Target-13 of the KMGBF—which, when read together, aim to ensure equitable and increased benefit sharing from the use of genetic resources, digital sequence information and traditional knowledge.

The Fund’s launch and goals are a welcome step in recognizing the invaluable role of indigenous communities in safeguarding biodiversity, while also providing the financial resources necessary for continued conservation efforts. The outcome of discussions by the state parties in Rome set a target of bridging a biodiversity finance gap of $700 billion by 2030. Parties also agreed to create two separate work streams to achieve this target—one on the “financial mechanism” to channel funds for biodiversity, and another to “improve mobilization of finance from all sources.” The division of work streams at the outset could be helpful in streamlining the financing process as a whole.

However, cautious optimism must prevail, as the outcomes of COP29 in Baku  under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”) which is a broader instrument that focusses on a diverse range of measures to address climate change and the discussions in Cali last October demonstrate that sources of funding remain a contentious issue in both the UNFCCC and CBD negotiations. While the establishment of the Cali Fund is a move in the right direction, operationalizing it and ensuring that targets are met will not be easy in the current global political and economic order, and it is fair to say that this operationalization now hangs by a thread.

There is also the question of the nodal entity for these disbursements. Some parties have pushed for the creation of an independent body focused on biodiversity to replace the existing Global Environment Facility (“GEF”), which currently administers the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund. The GEF has repeatedly failed to secure sufficient funding to protect biodiversity. Critics of the GEF mechanism—predominantly from the most vulnerable countries—have described its processes as overly bureaucratic and emphasised the need for an independent entity, a proposal that has found support from the BRICS nations. Furthermore, enforcing the revenue contributions from the targeted entities located across jurisdictions would also pose a challenge—one that plagues most international environmental regulatory instruments. The ongoing and dramatic overhaul of the post-World War II world order will likely exacerbate these challenges. As we face growing isolationism and remilitarization across the world, we must remain hopeful, but cautious, when considering the future flow of finance in this space.

For all its challenges, the fund presents a rare opportunity: making corporations pay for what they have long taken for granted and compensate indigenous communities to ensure continued conservation efforts. As Earth Day reminds us, biodiversity conservation is not just an environmental imperative—it is a matter of justice, equity, and survival. Effective implementation of the Fund’s goals would help us build a fairer and more sustainable world.

Krishna Priya is a first year MALD student at the Fletcher School with a focus on Environmental Policy and Governance. She is interested in climate adaptation and resilience, and in exploring how governance frameworks, institutions, and political dynamics at various levels shape the design and implementation of adaptation and resilience policies.