The eleventh Conference of Parties (COP 11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held here next month is likely to lay emphasis on resource mobilisation for execution of the 10-year Strategic Plan’ adopted at the tenth summit held in Nagoya of Japan in October 2010 CBD is an international treaty for the conservation of biodiversity. With 193 Parties, the convention has near universal participation among countries.
The tenth CBD had adopted a new strategic plan’ to guide international and national efforts to save biodiversity. The Parties to the convention had agreed to a substantial increase in the level of financial resources in support of the implementation of the strategy.
According to the CBD secretariat, it was also decided at the convention that Parties would work to define in time for the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2012, the targets and mechanisms through which financial resources can be identified, unleashed and channelled.
With several countries facing financial crisis at present, resource mobilisation is going to be a major challenge, Braulio F de Souza Dias, executive secretary of the convention, told Business Standard over a telephonic conversation.
Dias said the ensuing convention would review the progress made so far in meeting the challenges of the continued loss of biodiversity, including mobilisation of necessary resources in this regard.
Besides the strategic plan, the Nagoya biodiversity summit had adopted a new international protocol on access to and sharing of the benefits from the use of the genetic resources of the plant.
Dias, however, said though the Nagoya protocol was signed by several countries, only five countries had ratified it so far while 12 other countries indicated they would ratify it.
A 60-member team headed by Dias is busy making arrangement for the COP 11 and CBD. The convention would address all threats to biodiversity including threats from climate change. This time the focus would be on the effects of ocean warming.
Dias, said about 10,000 people from across the globe would take part in the ensuing convention.