The failure of negotiations at the 11th Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, held in Lima, Peru, in late November 2025, has exposed a deep and widening fault line in global biodiversity governance. What unfolded in Lima was not merely a technical disagreement over seeds, but a fundamental clash between the Global North and the Global South over control, compensation, and the future of food security.
At the heart of the deadlock was a long-standing dispute over access to plant genetic resources and the equitable sharing of benefits derived from them. Developed nations pushed for a sweeping expansion of Annex I of the Treaty, seeking access to all plant genetic resources under a single multilateral framework. Developing countries, however, refused to open their biodiversity vaults without legally binding guarantees of fair and mandatory benefit-sharing.
Representatives from the Global South argued that for decades, corporations and research institutions from wealthier nations have extracted genetic material from biodiversity-rich regions, developed commercial crop varieties, and generated enormous profits without returning meaningful benefits to the communities and countries that conserved these resources. For them, the proposed “Grand Bargain” amounted to another chapter in the long history of resource extraction without accountability.
A major obstacle to consensus was the unresolved issue of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI. As modern plant breeding increasingly relies on digital genetic data rather than physical seed samples, developing nations demanded that DSI be brought under mandatory benefit-sharing rules. Developed nations and the global seed industry resisted this demand, claiming that such requirements would hinder scientific research, despite limited empirical evidence to support the argument.
Tensions escalated when negotiators attempted to finalise the structure of the benefit-sharing system while postponing decisions on actual payment rates until a future session scheduled for 2027. Many Global South delegations viewed this as a strategic gamble that would lock them into granting access now based on vague promises of future compensation. The final blow came on November 29, when the chair introduced a so-called compromise text that civil society groups and scientists criticised as heavily skewed in favour of large agribusiness interests. With consensus impossible, the Governing Body deferred all substantive decisions, leaving the Treaty effectively paralysed.
The collapse of talks has highlighted what many developing nations describe as a system of “paper benefits,” where moral responsibility and conservation duties fall disproportionately on biodiversity-rich countries while financial and technological rewards remain elusive. These nations are expected to preserve wild crop relatives, restrict land-use change, and absorb opportunity costs, all while receiving little more than symbolic recognition.
As trust in multilateral frameworks erodes, many countries are now turning towards the principle of seed sovereignty. There is a growing perception that the Multilateral System has legitimised biopiracy rather than prevented it. The risk, experts warn, is a surge in protectionist policies, with countries choosing to restrict or completely halt access to their seed banks. Such a shift could have severe consequences for global food security, especially at a time when climate change is accelerating the need for diverse, climate-resilient crop varieties.
The economic burden of conserving agricultural biodiversity often falls on smallholder farmers in regions such as the Andes, the Himalayas, and India’s Western and Eastern Ghats. These communities maintain traditional seed systems at personal financial cost. Without concrete benefit-sharing mechanisms, many may be forced to abandon diverse indigenous crops in favour of commercial monocultures, leading to irreversible genetic erosion and the loss of centuries-old agricultural knowledge.
The Lima deadlock mirrors a similar pattern seen in global plastics negotiations, where industrialised nations seek unrestricted production while shifting responsibility for waste management to the Global South. In both cases, developing countries are expected to bear environmental and social costs without receiving proportional economic benefits. This structural imbalance has fuelled frustration and intensified calls for alternatives beyond stalled United Nations processes.
In response, provider communities are increasingly exploring legal and technological tools that bypass international gridlock. Biocultural Community Protocols have emerged as a powerful mechanism for asserting local rights. These protocols function as community-defined legal frameworks that set binding conditions for access to biological resources and traditional knowledge. By relying on contract law rather than international treaties, they offer enforceable protections that multilateral agreements often fail to deliver.
One of the most prominent examples is the Rooibos benefit-sharing agreement in South Africa. After more than a century of commercial exploitation, the Indigenous Khoi and San communities successfully secured a legally binding arrangement that now channels a share of industry revenues into a community trust. The agreement demonstrated that justice is possible when communities assert control through enforceable legal structures rather than relying solely on global diplomacy.
Technological initiatives such as the Amazon Bank of Codes are also reshaping the debate. By placing genetic data on blockchain systems and linking access to smart contracts, such platforms aim to ensure traceability and automatic benefit-sharing. In a world where digital genetic data can be copied endlessly, proponents argue that blockchain offers a way to establish ownership, accountability, and compensation.
Together, these developments point to a profound shift in global biodiversity politics. The concept of a “biodiversity cartel” reflects a growing awareness within the Global South of its collective leverage. As biological data becomes increasingly valuable, biodiversity-rich countries are beginning to treat it as a strategic asset rather than a freely accessible global commons.
The standoff in Lima suggests that the future of biodiversity governance may no longer be shaped solely by consensus-driven diplomacy. Instead, it may increasingly depend on enforceable contracts, technological safeguards, and coordinated action by countries and communities determined to protect both their ecological heritage and their economic rights.