CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a Hyderabad Pledge on Tuesday,16^th October,2012, under which India will spend $50 million to strengthen the institutional mechanisms for protection of biological diversity during its two-year presidency of the Convention on Biological Diversity.This will be used to advance the objectives of the CBD, at the national and state level in the country. Similar capacity building assistance funding will be made available to developing countries.Dr. Singh said India had ratified the Nagoya Protocol of the CBD providing for access and benefit sharing for use of genetic resources and firmed up its commitment. All Parties to the Convention should do likewise and there was no cause for further delay.Calling ecosystem services provided by biodiversity of great importance for the 'GDP of the poor', Dr. Singh told the high level segment of the CBD Plenary, which he inaugurated, that India was devoting large amount of funds to safeguard their sustenance through schemes such as the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The country had also passed the Biological Diversity Act in 2002 and the National Biodiversity Action Plan.

Despite global efforts, the 2010 global biodiversity targets set under the Convention on Biological Diversity could not be fully met. This situation must change. The critical issue is how to mobilise the necessary financial, technical and human resources necessary, particularly the incubation, sharing, and transfer of technology.Protecting and promoting biodiversity has always been an integral part of the Indian ethos and culture. This can be seen from the thousands of sacred groves all over the country. Traditional system of agriculture and medicine in India has depended on plant and animal biodiversity, and protecting the wild relatives of these resources that we use today is of paramount importance.Since it has been a matter of concern that the public knowledge represented by biodiversity may be restricted in the regime of modern intellectual property rights, India has created a digital library of traditional knowledge. This is in a format that is easily accessible to patent examiners and had been able to avert over a thousand cases of bio-piracy. Also, 105 claims were cancelled or dropped by Patent Offices. India was offering its assistance to the World Intellectual Property Organisation to set up other similar facilities.

The treasure trove of traditional knowledge should be used for the benefit of all humanity, rather than for profit, he said.Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan said if the CoP did not come to an agreement on taking the process further in Hyderabad, the implementation of the Aichi Targets on biodiversity would have lost four years, making them more difficult to realise. The importance of biodiversity for cities was also recognised at the CoP, through a major event on Cities for Life.The UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner said the world was trying to come up with a response to the challenge of living in a populous planet, and the Aichi Targets were not just a paper product, but something that called for international commitment for implementation. The Nagoya Protocol took 20 years to articulate and needed to be taken forward with determined resource mobilisation.Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy announced that Hyderabad would set up a Biodversity Park and installed a commemorative pylon - unveiled by the Prime Minister - to mark the CBD CoP 11 held in the city. The Japanese Environment Minister Hiroyuki Nagahama recalled the actions taken to finalise the Aichi Targets in his country. The Nagoya Protocol was another significant achievement of the last meeting and Japan would continue to support to biodiversity conservation globally. The Executive Secretary of the CBD, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias praised India's Hyderabad Pledge and said it showed its commitment to the objective of protection of biodiversity.

Prof. John Kurakar