Ethiopia is endowed with diverse geographic features and climatic variability. The wide range of altitude covering from 126m below sea level to 4620m above sea level is the major driver of diversity in physio-geographic features that comprise high and rugged mountains, flat-topped plateaus, deep gorges, incised river valleys, lakes and rolling plains. This made the country to be ecologically diverse with chains of highlands, midlands and lowlands. Ethiopia is endowed with various ecosystems that are classified into five broad categories, namely: Mountain, Forest and Woodland, Aquatic and Wetland, Rangeland, and Agro-ecosystems that are inhabited by diverse plant, animal and microbial genetic resources, including the endemic elements; making the country among the global biodiversity hotspots. Apart from ecological and environmental factors driving the diversity, socio-ecological systems have also contributed to the rich biological resources, because Ethiopia is a country of various ethnic groups associated with diverse languages, cultures, and community knowledge. 

Ethiopia is recognized as one of the Vavilovian centers of origin and/or diversity for certain crop genetic resources. It is also a member of the Like‑Minded Mega Diverse Countries (LMMC), and hosts two of the 36 Global Biodiversity Hotspots. Ethiopia has diverse plant genetic resources of wild and cultivated origin distributed across a wide range of environments, with the higher plants estimated at over 6000 species, 10% of which are endemic to the country. Diverse wild plant species exist in Ethiopia, distributed across natural and semi-natural habitats, mainly hosted by forests. They include plants of both economic and cultural importance, such as medicinal plants, forage, and wild edible plants. Diverse fields and horticultural crops are cultivated in the country, but their status is decreasing over time, attributed to different factors such as replacement of farmers’ varieties, diseases and pests, deforestation, agricultural expansion, overharvesting, overgrazing, frequent drought, invasive species, habitat conversion, unreliable rainfall, and market-related socioeconomic factors. 

Around 100 indigenous farm animal breeds and species are reported to exist in Ethiopia with cattle, chicken, sheep, and goats leading in the number of breeds. Moreover, other domestic farm animals such as various breeds of horses, donkeys, and mules exist in the country. There are also exotic breeds of some livestock categories introduced to Ethiopia that gradually crossed with indigenous breeds for the purpose of improving egg, milk, and meat production. There are 3,230 wild mammal species in Ethiopia of which 55 species are endemic. Similarly, there are 926 bird species of which 24 are endemic. Furthermore, 4,693 species of arthropods with 823 endemic species; 81 amphibian species, including 30 endemics, and 242 reptile species with 19 endemic species are registered to occur in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, 88 species of wild animals are threatened at different threat levels of the IUCN category. Besides, wildlife habitats such as aquatic and wetlands are subjected to various levels of threats ranging from habitat degradation, overharvesting, unsustainable water use, siltation, mining, wetland drainage for alternative land uses, and pollution. Diverse microbial genetic resources exist in the country, although few data exist on their exploration, collection, characterization, and conservation, owing to the limited capacity in the sector. Despite the limited efforts, the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute has identified and conserved 1,350 species of bacteria, fungi, and microalgae in its gene bank. Similar to their exploration, collection, and conservation, limited data exist on the extent of threats to the country’s microbial genetic resources, except for the generally held consensus that factors that impact ecosystems, and plant and animal diversity, are also believed to affect microbial genetic resources. 

Given that Ethiopia is home to over 80 ethnic groups with distinct languages and dialects, the culture is diverse, which is closely linked to a wide range of community knowledge, practices, and innovations associated with the conservation and sustainable use of the country’s biodiversity. The diverse farming and pastoralist communities have maintained various crop, livestock, and associated biodiversity resources through their community knowledge and traditional practices, overusing plants and animal resources in their daily lives. Nevertheless, community knowledge associated with biodiversity is declining due, mainly, to reliance on modern healthcare, loss of native plant and animal species, and weak integration of community knowledge and practices into modern scientific practices.

Biodiversity and ecosystems proved mankind with diverse ecosystem services that are categorized into provisioning (food, fresh water, fuel wood, fiber, bio-chemicals, and genetic resources), supporting (soil formation, nutrient cycling and primary production), regulating (regulation of climate, disease, water, and purification and pollination), and cultural services (spiritual, religious, recreation, eco-tourism, esthetic, inspirational, educational, and cultural heritage services). Despite the fact that data on the monetary values of these biodiversity and ecosystem services are scanty in Ethiopia, there are crude and proxy indications of ecosystem services from various elements of biodiversity. Agriculture contributes around 40% to GDP and accounts for 80% of exports. Export earnings and GDP contributions from coffee, pulses, oil crops, fruits, spices, chat, cereal crops, live animals, and their products are major contributions from cultivated crops and farm animals. Similarly, forest resources contribute significantly to the country’s economic, ecological, and social well-being, with nearly 12.86% contribution to the GDP. Although not quantified in monetary values, cultural diversity and associated indigenous knowledge also play invaluable roles in a variety of fields such as agriculture, health care services, weather or climate services, and natural resource conservation. However, biodiversity and ecosystem services in Ethiopia are under pressure from direct and indirect drivers. Habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive alien species and woody encroachers, climate change, replacement of farmers’ varieties and breeds, and pollution are the direct drivers of biodiversity loss. Indirect drivers that trigger biodiversity loss through their effects on direct drivers include demographic pressure, poverty, low levels of awareness, and lack of coordination among stakeholders. 

In response to these threats and challenges and cognizant of the values of biodiversity, the Ethiopian government has made tremendous efforts to reverse the situation and promote biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and access to genetic resources and equitable sharing of benefits accrued from their use. Along with this, the country has ratified international and regional treaties such as CBD, ITPGRFA, CITES, CMS, World Heritage, and AEWA, including acceding to the Nagoya protocol. As part of the global and national efforts to achieve the CBD objectives, Ethiopia has prepared and successfully implemented the first and second NBSAPs, followed by the preparation of the present 2025-2030 NBSAP. A wide range of relevant stakeholders participated in the updating of the Strategy and the Action Plan under the lead coordination of the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute. The process involved the establishment of a multi-stakeholder technical and steering committee at various levels, an inception workshop, drafting national targets, a series of consultative meetings of the National Biodiversity Platform at different milestones of the updating process, including a final validation and launching workshops. 

The updated Ethiopian National Biodiversity Strategy and the Action Plan (Eth. NBSAP 2025-2030) consists of eight chapters. Chapter One gives description of physiographic and climatic features, administrative arrangements, demography and economic development as well as the overview on biodiversity of the country. Chapter Two describes the biodiversity resource base, within the ecosystems; consisting of plant, animal and microbial diversity and associated cultural diversity along with their status and trends. Chapter Three presents values of biodiversity and ecosystem services with a special focus on values of agro-biodiversity including coffee, and values of forest and wildlife resources. It further describes the direct and indirect values of protected areas and other natural resources. Chapter Four outlines the direct and indirect drivers threatening biodiversity leading to local extinction of species in Ethiopia. Chapter Five describes biodiversity governance and institutions such as policies, strategies, proclamations and regulations. These strategic and legal instruments include both existing and emerging legal frameworks. Chapter Six gives a detailed account of lessons drawn from implementation of the previous NBSAPs and the processes involved in revising the current one. Chapter Seven provides the globally shared vision, mission, goals, guiding principles and targets. The targets that have been aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Targets and Goals are further described using technical rationale, implementation strategy and milestones. Chapter Eight presents implementation arrangements outlining the overall coordination mechanisms with a leading role of the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute in establishing of the NBSAP-Technical Committee and running of the National Biodiversity Platform (NBP) that are drawn from various government and non-governmental organizations. It also describes mechanisms of resource mobilization, data sharing (CHM), monitoring and evaluation, and reporting during implementation of the Strategy. 

The vision of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a world of living in harmony with nature where “by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.” The mission of the Framework for the period up to 2030 is to take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity and ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources, while providing the necessary means of implementation, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has the following four Goals.

Goal A: Substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems by maintaining, enhancing, 

or restoring the integrity, connectivity, and resilience of all ecosystems. Reduce by tenfold the extinction rate and risk of all species, and increase the abundance of native wild species. Maintain the genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species and safeguard their adaptive potential

Goal B: Ensure nature’s contributions to people are valued, maintained, and enhanced, 

with those contributions currently in decline being restored

Goal C: Share the monetary and non-monetary benefits of the utilization of GR, DSI on 

genetic resources, and TK associated with Indigenous people and local communities. Ensure TK knowledge is appropriately protected.

Goal D: Ensure all parties (specifically developing countries) have adequate means to

implement the GBF. This includes financial resources, capacity building, technical and scientific cooperation, and access to technology.

Under the above shared four global Goals, Ethiopia has developed the following 19 National targets.

Eth - Target 1: By 2030, areas of high biodiversity importance are spatially planned, and effectively managed and increased from the existing 30% to 80%, addressing land-use changes in full participation of stakeholders. 

Eth - Target 2: By 2030, forest coverage is increased from 23.6% to 30%, area of degraded wetland decreased by 20% from the existing 27,142.5km2 and degraded terrestrial land decreased by 20% from the existing 85, 243km2, extent of conversion of grazing land decreased from 43.7% to 30% through fostering ecosystem-based management approach, there by at least 30% of the degraded land is restored.

Eth - Target 3: By 2030, ecologically representative protected areas including biosphere reserves and inland waters are increased from 12 to 30%, while the existing 0.08% ecosystem and species based in-situ sites are doubled through enhancing their ecological connectivity and effective management by actively engaging local communities. 

Eth - Target 4: By 2030, in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity is increased from 178 to 205 sites for conservation of crop varieties and animal breeds on farm, and management standards of the existing are improved. 

Eth -.Target 5: By 2030, ex-situ conservation; emphasizing endemic, endangered, economically and ecologically important species of crop varieties of 92,258 accessions, 3,644 accessions of forest species, 120,000 straws of animal breeds and 1,350 microbial species/strains are increased by 10%, 25%, 50%, and 10%, respectively; and standards of the existing ex situ conservation are improved.

Eth - Target 6. By 2030, proportion of areas invaded by invasive alien species are reduced by 50% from the existing 3,949,314ha through eradicating the existing invasions and preventing their introduction and expansion. 

Eth - Target 7: By 2030, pollution of major ecosystems is reduced by at least 10% from the existing 10 million tones by application of innovative measures, with emphasis on municipal and industrial sources.

Eth - Target 8: By 2030, land-based mitigation and adaptation measures contribute to the reduction of at least 152.75 MtCO2e from the BAU scenario of 346 MtCO2e, and inter-sectoral coordination towards biodiversity mainstreaming in the climate actions is increased.

Eth - Target 9: By 2030, unsustainable utilization of wild genetic resources is reduced ensuring that all uses, including harvesting and trading activities are implemented sustainably, safely and legally.

Eth - Target 10: By 2030, biodiversity issues are integrated into agricultural systems 

through application of biodiversity friendly practices and use of improved decision support processes in agricultural production systems, where at least 25% of agricultural land is put under agro-ecological practices. 

Eth - Target 11: By 2030, 75 urban centers put 30% their land under spatially planed green areas through biodiversity inclusive urban planning.

Eth - Target 12: By 2030, access to genetic resources for research and development of 294,616 crop and horticulture accessions, 5700 forest and rangeland plants accessions, 9,000 straws of semen of domestic animals, 620 accessions of microbial species/strains and 1500 access permits are increased by 32%, 18%, 67%, 17% and 55%, respectively and value addition and market linkage are carried-out for at least 18 biological commodities.

Eth - Target 13: By 2028, biodiversity and ecosystem services related laws, in including those associated with incentives are studied, reviewed and integrated into the national and local development policies, strategies and plans.

Eth - Target 14: By 2030, a system of regulation and guideline are formulated, integrated 

to tax and business laws and enforced to implement biodiversity compliance to off-set negative impacts of business activities on biodiversity.

Eth - Target 15: By 2028, biodiversity priorities and concerns are integrated into biosafety regulatory framework and capacity to regulate transaction of GMOs is enhanced. 

Eth - Target 16: By 2030, capacity to implement biodiversity conservation, sustainable 

utilization and access and benefit sharing are improved by strengthening information technology, gene banks and laboratory infrastructures through technology transfer, and scientific and technical cooperation; including through South-South and North-South cooperation.

Eth - Target 17: By 2030, data, information and comprehensive knowledge and innovations related to biodiversity values, ecosystem functioning, status and trends are generated, and the consequences of biodiversity loss are determined, reviewed, compiled and made accessible to decision makers, practitioners and the public, and are applied in biodiversity related planning and decision-making processes.

Eth - Target 18: By 2030, gender equality and a gender-responsive approach for 

biodiversity actions is ensured through awareness, participation, and social inclusion of disability, youth, and children, and other vulnerable groups, and the actions that the stakeholders can take to conserve and use biodiversity sustainably is improved.

Eth - Target 19: By 2029, mobilization of financial resources from domestic sources 

required for effective implementation of the strategy by mandated sectoral institutions is increased at least by 57% and strategy is devised to secure additional fund from other internal and external sources.