The world’s largest gathering ever on biodiversity began here on Monday with experts and policy makers from 170 countries trying to work out the Hyderabad roadmap to achieve the biological diversity and safety targets set in the last two decades.
Union minister for environment and forests Jayanthi Natarajan, who inaugurated the two-week-long 11th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, hoped that the Hyderabad roadmap would chart the path towards reversing biodiversity loss and “create a better world for ourselves and our children”.
The COP-11 of which India is the chair has now emerged as the largest ever meeting of international delegates on biodiversity. According to CBD executive secretary Dr Braulio De Souza Dias, a little over 40,000 delegates had registered for the conference, the highest for all COP meetings held so far.
The Hyderabad roadmap will help move the world from the stage of fixing new targets on biodiversity protection to sharing of experience on implementing the already agreed-up issues.
India assumed the presidency of COP 11 with the formal handover of the reins by Japan, which held the post since COP-10 held in Nagoya in 2010. India will oversee the implementation of the work of the convention, including the Nagoya Strategic Plan for biodiversity and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
Ms Natarajan said, “The present global economic crisis should not deter us, but on the contrary encourage us to invest more towards amelioration of the natural capital for ensuring uninterrupted ecosystem services, on which all life on earth depends.”
In his opening remarks, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias urged the nations to mobilise the financial resources needed to enable developing countries to achieve the Aichi Targets at national level.