India
will earmark a sum of $50 million to strengthen institutional mechanism for
biodiversity conservation in India and other developing countries. This has
been announced by the PM Manmohan Singh under the 'Hyderabad Pledge' while
launching the high level segment of the UN Convention on Biodiversity meeting.The
sum will be used to enhance the technical and human capabilities of Indian
national and State mechanisms to attain CBD objectives.
On
the domestic front, PM promised more inclusive conservation and protection of
livelihoods of fisher-folk on the lines of Forest Rights Act for tribal
communities and other forest dwellers. He also pointed out that a digital database
of the traditional knowledge had been helping in checking bio-piracy and shed
light on the way India was sharing benefits with locals under National
Biodiversity Act.
On
the international front, the global talks to resolve environmental issues had
not moved forward, because the rich nations were not willing to pay due to the
slowdown, whereas the 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets set under the convention
were not fully met. Thus the countries should make concerted effort to save
biodiversity as India has recently done by ratifying the Nagoya Protocol on
Access and Benefit Sharing. The need of the hour is to mobilize the necessary
financial, technical and human resources, particularly the incubation, sharing
and transfer of technology.
However
the talks on resource mobilization are stuck with countries such as Canada and
Mexico refusing to budge from their respective positions. Canada does not want
to commit any money till a "realistic" assessment of biodiversity
loss is done whereas Mexico wants some commitment before any assessment study
is done.
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