In the Streets to Save Biodiversity: the COP-15 Protests in Montreal

As environmental activists hold on to hope for their future—for a planet to live on and for the preservation of life—Montreal police stood firm with their weapons in hand, ready to stop anyone who crossed their lines. 

Biodiversity is disintegrating across the planet. While ecologist groups, activists, scientists, and world leaders are discussing how “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction” and drastic changes need to be made to stop it:  corporations continue to build infrastructure that destroy ecosystems and protected land. This is why environmental activists stood up and spoke out across the city of Montreal during the 15th United Nations Biodiversity conference.

What is COP-15? 

COP-15 is the 15th Conference of Parties, which took place in Montreal Quebec. At COP-15 global leaders had meetings to discuss the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, where countries have pledged to save 30 percent of biodiversity loss by 2030. Early on in the conference proceedings, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged $800 Million to Indigenous-led conservation initiatives aimed at helping Canada reach its goal of conserving 25 percent of land and water by 2025. 

With the creation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the conference came to a conclusion on December 20, 2022. This agreement aims to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land, oceans, coastal regions, and inland water by 2030. The framework consists of four global goals for 2050, including: the halting of human induced extinction of threatened species, and the maintenance and resilience of natural ecosystems; biodiversity will be used and managed sustainably and people will value, maintain, and improve ecosystem functions and services, including restoring what is currently in decline; genetic resources are being shared fairly and equitably, including in terms of monetary benefits, its utilization, digital sequence information, and traditional knowledge; and, finally, the implementation of the biodiversity framework will be accessible to all parties

When I first heard about the COP-15 conference, I immediately thought of home: Newfoundland and Labrador, where infrastructure and government commitment do not match Canada’s global environmental commitments. 

For example, Equinor’s Bay Du Nord project is supposed to begin pumping oil as early as 2028, three years after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  recommends greenhouse emissions should peak by 2025. Canada is a member of the IPCC, a global organisation that was established to help with policy decisions. The IPCC has suggested a decrease in the use of fossil fuels.

I recently found in an investigation that ecosystems and wildlife are at risk of being lost or damaged by World Energy GH2’s proposted wind farm project on the west-coast of Newfoundland. I also found that hydrogen production and usage have potential climate warming effects.

Therefore, resistance to the COP-15 convention immediately piqued my interest with these issues at home in the back of my mind. What promises are world leaders going to make that will not be followed through? What more false hope could COP-15 potentially bring? 

While The Independent’s Jenn Thornhill Verma reported on what’s going on inside the conference, I explored the events going on outside the conference that were organized by people who shared the same concern: will COP-15 be enough to save biodiversity?

“No more broken promises” is a phrase I heard chanted outside the walls of the COP-15 conference. My goal in writing this piece is to take you on the journey I took while I walked with those who were protesting COP-15.

The Calm Before the Storm

Leading up to the COP-15 convention, I took a walk around the conference centre in Montreal where the conference would be taking place. Already, there was an increased police presence in the area. Big fences had been placed around the conference centre and the metro station attached to the building had been blocked off for public access. The Montreal police were prepared for resistance. And I had my camera ready. 

The first protest I attended was organized by Coalition anticapitaliste et écologiste contre la COP-15—a coalition formed to block COP-15. I found out about the event because the organizers had been circulating newspapers, informational pamphlets, and posters around my university campus. 

The pamphlets call for mobilization against COP-15. These pamphlets detail information about COP-15 agreements, including The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the “Agenda for responsible business engagement,” and the Nagoya Protocol’s “Access and benefit sharing program.” The coalition argues that COP-15 is working to increase private sector participation through the Nagoya Protocol by privatizing access to genetic resources as well as exploiting Indigenous lands and countries in the global south with high levels of biodiversity for natural resources.

The calls to action were intense and impassioned, so I knew this protest was going to be intense. My photojournalist friend and I got our cameras ready and met up at Saint-Louis square, ready to take in the action. 

Friday Night Strike Against COP-15

When we arrived, there was already a crowd gathered there, and as the march began, the crowd grew larger. Police patrolled the inner-city park on bikes and on large horses, certainly making their presence known.

But the organizers were  ready. Organizers who were marked with a red cross were part of the “Street Medic Collective”. They also handed out small slips with information on your legal rights, and included the contact of a lawyer in case you are arrested. When I was handed this I knew it was serious. 

Organizers also handed out free STM tickets that could be used on the Metro or bus public transit systems. One of the organizers explained that the police could easily trace your whereabouts since your name and information are on your standard STM card. There was clear preparation for police at this protest.

The other media and I followed along the crowd on the edges. There were likely as many or more police than protesters. Police officers were well-trained in crowd patrol, as there were police cars in front and behind the marching crowd. Officers on bikes followed alongside and raced ahead of the crowd on each turn. 

As the protestors got closer to the conference center, the police presence increased. As an excited young journalist, I got close to the action. However, upon reflection and after discussions with other journalists, I would not suggest not doing this—standing in front of ready-for-action riot police is very dangerous!

The police presence intensified surrounding the conference centre. Riot police forced themselves into the crowd, attempted to block their paths, and blared loud warnings of illegal activity and willingness to arrest. 

The protesters didn’t back down, and continued to march towards the Palais de Congrès, chanting loudly “Fuck la COP 15!”

I was close enough to capture a lot of the action on video.

The march became increasingly dangerous, as some police officers became aggressive with protestors, including one officer my friend witnessed kick a woman in the marching crowd (which occurs off-screen in the video below, near 0:35). So after a couple of laps around the Palais de Congrès, my friend and I decided to leave.

Their anger was clear. Protesters were urgent and harsh in their message—the planet is dying and COP-15’s corporate-led solutions are not going to fix it. 

NL Offshore Oil makes a presence in Montreal

One company that will benefit from inclusion in Biodiversity agreements is Equinor. On December 9th, Equiterre and Sierra Club Canada put off a major demonstration, including a massive projection on a building near the UN summit.  It included a video of whales around the world who are at risk from offshore oil projects, and the words “Equinor, Stop Oil and Gas Expansion.” Equinor is a multinational oil and gas company that is seeking to expand offshore oil projects in the Atlantic Ocean, including Newfoundland and Labrador’s Bay Du Nord project. 

The projection aimed to show Canada’s hypocrisy during the COP-15 convention. While Canada is claiming they want to protect biodiversity, they are approving harmful oil projects. DFO Scientist Frédéric Cyr crunched the numbers provided by Equinor in a draft report and found that Bay Du Nord has a 16 percent chance of significant spilling, which is not considered “rare” in terms of statistical science. 

The Mi’kmaq First Nation—alongside Ecojustice—is challenging the decision in court, seeking a judicial review of Canada’s approval of the Bay du Nord environmental assessment, with the belief that scientists’ concerns for oceans and wildlife have been overlooked. 

Saturday’s March for Biodiversity and Human Rights

On Saturday afternoon, despite the frigid temperatures, roughly 3500 people gathered for a demonstration at the March for Biodiversity and Human Rights. The march included a wide variety of art and music to represent the beauty of the planet, which we urgently need to protect. 

With the darkness of Friday night behind me, I took a long bus ride to the Statue du Mount-Royal for the March for Biodiversity and Human Rights, organized by the Quebec Civil Society Collective for COP-15. The collective consists of over 67 organizations and allies who are mobilizing for biodiversity protection in the context of COP-15. 

The day was very cold but very bright and sunny. As I walked towards the meeting location of the march, it wasn’t hard to find. With large crowds gathered and large art pieces representing the earth and biodiversity. 

The presentation of art and music, accompanied by the bright sun in the sky above, made the march feel like more of a demonstration of appreciation for the planet—and in doing so made the need for protection against biodiversity loss feel all the more urgent. 

The front of the march was led by an Indigenous delegation and included Indigenous people from all over the world. The music rang out across the crowd and included drumming, singing, and dancing from participants. 

It felt as though the leading of the march was symbolic of what the marchers wanted from COP-15. Not only do we need to talk about biodiversity loss, but we need to talk about the role colonization has played in biodiversity loss. The Indigenous people and music that led the march served as a metaphor for how Indigenous people should take leadership in preserving biodiversity.

As explained by members of the Indigenous delegation, the words they sing act as a prayer. The singing, drumming, and dancing functioned as a call to the earth and as a message for us to hear. Throughout the crowd the following words were sung:

“Power to the people… we come together… There’s no justice no peace, only stormy weather!” 

“Trudeau is a colonizer!” 

“We don’t need your constitution!”

“Stop invading native land!”

“We will fight until we win!”

“We love the earth, this is that planet that we’ve got, we got to protect the trees, we got to protect the water, we got to protect the air. We have to house everybody. The earth is our home!” 

The march ended at a stage set up near Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, a couple of blocks from the conference center where COP-15 was taking place. Indigenous leaders took to the microphone to speak on COP-15. Indigenous people from Canada and South America gathered on stage together to express their grief at the ongoing loss of land to corporate greed. Including the Amazon, where rare and important biodiversity is being lost to infrastructure projects, mining, and deforestation. 

One Indigenous leader spoke to the crowd:

“I am here with my sisters and cousins. We are here to bring a message from our territories because we are under siege from the Canadian government.”

“We face extractive industries such as mining, such as dams, that threaten to steal our future from us, that rob us of our birthright… there are benefactors of colonialism that are gathering at COP-15… they are putting forward false solutions.”

Another Indigenous leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon spoke out against Canadian mining companies destroying land in the Amazon: “Indigenous leaders and Indigenous people are being attacked every day,” she explained. ”Canadian corporations and the Canadian government are perpetuating this violence. The violence we are experiencing in the Amazon is the same violence my sisters are experiencing here in Canada.”

After sharing their stories about the land where they come from, an Indigenous speaker explained “Now we are going to sing a song of prayer. In our communities, we understand that when we sing we are singing love and prayer into the future and we want to send these messages of love and protection to all of the lands where we come from because when we sing, we remember all the things that we love and we miss.”

Indigenous-led Conservation 

The Indigenous leaders who spoke at the March for Biodiversity and Human Rights emphasized the need for Indigenous leadership in the conservation of biodiversity. 

Outside the walls of COP-15, other important discussions were being had between Indigenous leaders, who have the experience and knowledge of the land needed to preserve it.

Victoria Watson, a lawyer with Ecojustice, spoke at a Collectif COP-15 panel titled “Protecting Biodiversity in BC: Challenges and Opportunities,” about the need to decolonize legal pathways to help biodiversity loss. She explained that there needs to be a robust rights-based approach to protecting biodiversity and that Indigenous peoples need to be involved as partners from the beginning. 

Chief Ernest Alfred, leader of the Namgis First Nation, said that there are “Those who are making decisions on our behalf without talking to us.”

There is some hope for Indigenous-led conservation in Canada. On December 10th the Indigenous Village hosted a First Nations National Guardians Network Launch Party. The Indigenous village included the installation of a traditional Innu shaputuan, with a heated conference zone, other cultural displays, Indigenous arts, and traditional foods. The Indigenous village was a warm space to enter after a long cold day of marching, with wood-burning fires outside of the shaputuan. 

On December 9th, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada Steven Guilbeault announced federal funding for the First Nations National Guardians Network, which celebrated its launch in the Indigenous village. The Indigenous Guardians have been lobbying the government and speaking with communities since 2014. 

The network will connect over 120 indigenous guardians that will monitor and protect the environment on their traditional territories with support from the federal government and Environment Canada. According to The Narwhal, they will receive $5.8 million in funding from the federal government to cover operations until 2026. The network will help Indigenous people honour their cultural traditions and allow them to pass on traditional knowledge to new generations. The network also has the endorsement of the David Suzuki foundation. 

As one speaker at the Guardians Network launch party said “The reason Indigenous people have survived is because of our culture and wisdom, and that is the solution for humanity.” 

Yet, while the Network is an important step for the Canadian government, in reconciliation with Indigenous communities and conserving important land across the country, corporations are still given a place at the table when it comes to discussing the use of land and resources. 

The solutions are clear for some—let Indigenous wisdom lead decision-making surrounding the preservation of biodiversity, and end corporate exploitation of the land. But we are far from making this a reality across the globe. 

Protest, demonstration, art, and music played an important role during COP-15. Despite happening outside its walls, the events hold a message of perseverance, hope for the future, and solutions world leaders must keep forefront in their minds.

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