Biodiversity governance in Latin America: Analyzing the role and relevance of non-state and sub-national cooperative initiatives

Non-state actors have long been recognized as key players in addressing biodiversity loss and have recently gained prominence in formal international biodiversity governance. Their efforts can be categorized as cooperative initiatives, which encompass a wide array of programs, projects, and partnerships dedicated to biodiversity protection. However, the current understanding of these cooperative initiatives is predominantly based on mappings derived from English-language sources. To bridge this gap, we aim to enhance the understanding of the institutional landscape of biodiversity governance in Latin America by exploring information in Spanish and Portuguese. To achieve this, we collected data from an existing database, focusing on initiatives operating in Latin America. Additionally, we conducted targeted searches on Google using Spanish and Portuguese keywords related to biodiversity to identify further initiatives. Our analysis included descriptive statistics of variables such as the types of actors involved, their connection to biodiversity, their roles, and accountability mechanisms. The findings reveal that Brazil, Colombia, and Peru host the highest number of initiatives, while Cuba, Venezuela, and Paraguay host the fewest. Civil society organizations emerge as the most active participants, whereas businesses are the least engaged. Most initiatives focus on governance functions such as information sharing and networking, with limited attention to financing. Moreover, accountability mechanisms are generally underdeveloped, and only a few initiatives explicitly reference the Convention on Biological Diversity or the Sustainable Development Goals. These results offer insights into the drivers and mechanisms of these initiatives and their contributions to biodiversity protection.