India played a leadership role in getting developed countries to double funding for the conservation of biodiversity.
Summing up the outcome of the 11th Conference of Parties (CoP) to the Convention on Biodiversity held in Hyderabad recently, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan said on Monday that India had succeeded in getting developed countries to pledge $8 billion by 2020 to developing nations to help conserve biodiversity.
“India worked hard to accomplish a very difficult task of making the world governments agree to double financial flows in times of economic slowdown,” said the minister, adding that she would be writing to her counterparts in different countries to pledge additional funds.
Ms Natarajan said India had already set aside `50 crores towards South-South cooperation on biodiversity and highlighted that India would work to get the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing of Natural Resources ratified by 50 countries.
At the national level, India planned to take special steps to strengthen the State Biodiversity Boards and to prepare People’s Biodiversity Registers at the village level, with a sum of about `250 crores having been approved for this purpose.
Moreover, she expressed confidence that her ministry would work closely with other ministries for mainstreaming of biodiversity, adding that currently the country spends about $2 billion annually on mainstreaming biodiversity in the national policies.
Ms Natarajan also said that her ministry was preparing a note for Cabinet in which it would express its reservations on the proposed setting up of a National Investment Board. “This is a matter that needs to be discussed in the Cabinet. I have written to the Prime Minister. We will protect the interests of the environment.”
While agreeing that there was need to “greatly improve the process of clearances”, she said that her ministry had identified a clear “roadmap and time line for implementation” of the system. She insisted that the problem was not regulatory but implementation and expressed dismay that “our efforts are being derailed because of constant attempts aimed at destroying the regulatory system”. The minister said CoP-11 meet was the largest such conference organised in India.