Kochi is among the three Indian cities selected for the implementation of a biodiversity conservation project supported by Germany.
Besides Kochi, the cities of Mangaluru and Panaji will receive support for the project, which aims to support the “implementation of National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans through the mainstreaming of biodiversity objectives across city regions”.
A special meeting of the Kochi Corporation Council will discuss the project on Monday.
The project is supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Germany.
The four-year project will strive to “strengthen the integration of biodiversity management at all levels of governance and facilitate cooperation between national and sub-national authorities for ecosystem management in urban regions,” according to the concept note.
The tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity, held in Nagoya, Aichi, in Japan, in 2010, had adopted “a revised and updated strategic plan for biodiversity, including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, for the 2011-2020 period”.
The German-aided project, to be implemented in Kochi, primarily aims to achieve Aichi Target 2.
Aichi Target 2 has proposed to integrate by 2020, the biodiversity values “into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes”. The values shall also be “incorporated into national accounting, as appropriate, and reporting systems,” according to the Convention on Biological Biodiversity documents.
The Kochi project will also attempt to achieve Aichi Targets 1 and 17.
Target 1 aims to make people “aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably” at least by 2020. Target 17 suggests that each party to the convention will develop and adopt a policy instrument, and commence to implement an effective, participatory and updated national biodiversity strategy and action plan.
The Kochi project will also support the “local Biodiversity Management Committees through development of sub-national Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan”. It will also “facilitate both horizontal and vertical integration through the involvement of the State Biodiversity Boards and National Biodiversity Authority and the support of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change,” the project document said.
