PM announces $50 million for biodiversity conservation in India

Hyderabad: India will earmark a sum of $50 million to strengthen institutional mechanism for biodiversity conservation in the country, when it holds presidency of the Conference of Parties (CoP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Announcing this while inaugurating a high-level segment meeting at the ongoing CoP-11 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre in Hyderabad on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the funds would be utilised to enhance technical and human capabilities of India's national and state-level mechanisms to attain the Convention on Biological Diversity objectives.

India has assumed presidency of CoP for the next two years. "We have also earmarked funds to promote similar capacity building in developing countries," the Prime Minister added. Stating that India recently ratified the Nagoya Protocol and "formalised its commitment", the Prime Minister regretted that the biodiversity target set in 2010 was not fully met.

Biodiversity, found in our forests and our fields, could provide us keys to the solutions of the future.

"I would urge all the parties to ratify the Protocol because concerted global action is imperative and cannot brook any further delay. Despite global efforts, the 2010 biodiversity target that we had set for ourselves under the Convention on Biological Diversity was not fully met. "This situation needs to change. The critical issue really is how to mobilise the necessary financial, technical and human resources, particularly the incubation, sharing and transfer of technology," Manmohan Singh noted.

India, the Prime Minister said, stood committed to work with all parties to reach the "happy compromise" that would secure a future that provided ecological and economic space for each one of us and sustainable growth for all of us. "We know that food security is a key challenge for the world, particularly in an increasingly climate vulnerable world. Biodiversity, found in our forests and our fields, could provide us keys to the solutions of the future. So we need to build a movement to conserve traditional varieties of crops," he said.

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