COP 11 biodiversity: The world's largest gathering ever on biodiversity begins with experts and policy makers from 170 countries trying to work out the Hyderabad Roadmap to achieve the biological diversity and safety targets set in the last two decades

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Oct 8: The world's largest gathering ever on biodiversity
began here on Monday with experts and policy makers from 170 countries
trying to work out the Hyderabad Roadmap to achieve the biological
diversity and safety targets set in the last two decades.

Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan, who
inaugurated the two-week-long 11th Conference of Parties to the United
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, hoped that the Hyderabad
Roadmap would chart the path towards reversing biodiversity loss and
“create a better world for ourselves and our children”.

The COP-11 of which India is the Chair has now emerged as the largest
ever meeting of international delegates on biodiversity. According to
CBD executive secretary Dr Braulio De Souza Dias, a little over 40,000
delegates had registered for the conference, the highest for all COP
meetings held so far.

The Hyderabad Roadmap will help move the world from the stage of
fixing new targets on biodiversity protection to sharing of experience
on implementing the already agreed-up issues.

India assumed the Presidency of COP 11 with the formal handover of the
reins by Japan, which held the post since COP 10 held in Nagoya in
2010. India will oversee the implementation of the work of the
Convention, including the Nagoya Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and
its Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

Jayanthi Natarajan said, “The present global economic crisis should
not deter us, but on the contrary encourage us to invest more towards
amelioration of the natural capital for ensuring uninterrupted
ecosystem services, on which all life on Earth depends.”

In his opening remarks, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, urged the
nations to mobilize the financial resources needed to enable
developing countries to achieve the Aichi Targets at national level.

The COP 11 is mandated to consider, among others, the mobilization of
resources in support of the Global Strategy for Biodiversity and its
Aichi Targets, a report on the identification of ecologically and
biologically significant areas in marine ecosystems as well as a
number of other items related to the protection of biodiversity in
marine ecosystems; ecosystem restoration and the relationship between
biodiversity and climate change.

The meeting continues until October 19 with a high-level segment
featuring the participation of ministers and heads of State that runs
from October 16.