Recalling the last Nagoya Protocol, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an NGO focused on nature conservation, expressed concern and disappointment with the non-implementation of strategies that were listed down at the last convention.
“An overwhelming 91 per cent of parties to the Conference of Biodiversity CBD have developed strategies and plans for their approach to protect nature and biodiversity, but only 14 of the 193 countries updated their national strategies in sync with the the strategic plan agreed in Nagoya,” political advisor of WWF international Rolf Hogan said. India is also one among the 193 countries and though it had given its nod for the Nagoya protocol, it still has a long way to go.
The organization called on all the nations gathered at the conference to urgently start implementing the previously agreed targets. “What was agreed in Nagoya has the power to halt the dramatic loss of biodiversity across the globe by 2020 and address the main drivers of destruction. But now, governments must prove that Nagoya was not just a platform for empty promises. They need to start taking real steps and implement the targets they agreed on,” executive director for conservation at WWF Lasse Gustavsson said.
“Governments can only be serious about these targets if they are prepared to invest in achieving them. We need to see richer countries helping poorer countries. All countries must increase their domestic budgets,” Hogan added. Some nations that started working on the commitments are Indonesia, Guyana and European countries.
“The state of biodiversity in India is bad. We lost a lot of our forest area. Only four per cent is considered as protected forest area,” programme director of WWF India Sejal Worah added.
On AP, Farida Tampa from WWF Hyderabad said AP has a rich patch of biodiversity which is unexplored. “We have a huge patch of the Eastern Ghats which is rich in biodiversity. We have conducted many studies and have discovered new species of scorpions, a new form of weed and many such interesting facts. Apart from this, there are also a lot of lakes that need to be rehabilitated and the best method of implementing strategies is by involving political leaders and increasing funding,” she said.