The planet is experiencing the fastest extinction rate since the dinosaurs were struck by a meteor 65 million years ago. However, we can’t blame this unprecedented loss of biodiversity on a hurtling rock from outer space. This time, human activity is the perpetrator.

In response to this crisis, governments came together in Montreal this December for the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP 15), hallmarked as the “most significant conference on biodiversity in a decade” by the UN Development Programme. Here, global leaders were tasked with designing and developing a new Global Biodiversity Framework that would implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Negotiations stretched across a range of topics, including reversing this extinction trend, improving biodiversity finance, land protection, agriculture, oceans, indigenous rights, and more.