A day ahead of the UN’s 11th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, WWF International on Sunday expressed disappointment that many countries had failed to fulfil the commitments made in Nagoya at the last CBD meet.
Addressing a press conference here, Rolf Hogan, Biodiversity Policy Coordinator at WWF International, said that CBD had adopted Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and Nagoya Protocol. “We see relatively few countries implement or update their national strategies. Only 14 of the 193 nations updated their strategies as they committed to do so. Even less countries have ratified the Nagoya Protocol,” he added.
He urged the governments to honour the promises made at Nagoya, increase finances for implementing the CBD, implement conservation of biodiversity in high seas and to integrate biodiversity into the ongoing process of sustainable development.
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He said lack of political will was the main reason for most countries not honouring the promises made at Nagoya, where a set of ambitious targets were set. So far, the progress has been disappointing, he added. The first step would be to update the national strategic plan.
Sejal Worah, programme director WWF India said the status of biodiversity was not good in India and cited huge loss of forest cover. She also wanted synergising of various laws for protecting biodiversity. She said WWF India was involved in tiger conservation, freshwater species, marine conservation and other projects.
A major three-year project was ready to be launched to prevent human-elephant conflict in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Under the project to be taken up in coordination with the respective forest departments, radio-collars would be tied to elephants to track their movement round-the-clock.
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Farida Tampal, Director, WWF, Andhra Pradesh, wanted State government to use the convention to promote the use of renewable energy. She said there was also a need to explore Eastern Ghats more.