Activists now look beyond CoP
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Environmental groups are now looking beyond Hyderabad and CoP-11 to expose business-driven bio-economy and to promote the real biodiversity agenda of the United Nations. Civil society, NGOs, and grassroots environmental groups belonging to the CBD Alliance sent a strong message on Monday to the delegates gathered for CoP-11 to focus on getting things done, and implement the treaty.
“The CBD process should bring into sharp focus implementation of the commitments made by governments over the past 20 years”, said S. Faizi, of the Indian Biodiversity Forum. “CoP-10 in Nagoya moved the biodiversity agenda significantly forward.” Simone Lovera, executive director of the Global Forest Coalition, rejected corporate-driven agendas to promote ‘bio-economy’ and the financialisation of nature through perverse incentives like subsidies for biofuels, dangerous experiments in synthetic biology, genetically modified trees and geo-engineering.
Gunn-Britt Retter of the Saami Council said, “The importance of forest and agricultural biodiversity to the survival of indigenous peoples cannot be over-emphasised. Our food security, health and economic wellbeing have a direct relationship with our forest and agricultural biodiversity. The current emphasis on economic growth as a solution to the global economic crisis has affected indigenous people in far greater and disproportionate ways”.
Ramya Rajagopalan of the International Collec-tive in Support of Fish Workers said, “The serious threats to our oceans and coasts are well known. Indigenous peoples and local communities are at the forefront of the struggles and initiatives to protect coastal and marine resources.”
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