The two-day Cities for Life: city and sub-national biodiversity summit will be organised at HICC Convention Hall on October 15 and 16. The summit being organised by GHMC is the third local and sub-national government summit to be held parallel to a CBD-COP.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, GHMC mayor M Majid Hussain along with GHMC commissioner MT Krishna Babu said that it was an honour for Hyderabad to play host to the “Cities for Life Summit and City and Sub-National Biodiversity Summit”, the fifth largest metropolis in India.
“Cities for life” summit will bring together mayors, governors, higher ranking officials and their representative networks as well as governments of various nations, international organisations, UN agencies and specialists from across the world. Nearly 400 delegates from across the globe participating in this summit include 190 international delegates, representing 79 cities from 46 countries and 140 Indian delegates besides 26 mayors from prominent global cities and 11 mayors from India.
The mayor said that the purpose of the meeting is to take stock of the latest relevant tools and initiatives, to reiterate the importance of ecosystem services and understanding their value and to present a response by local governments, sub-national governments, academia and international organisations to the plan of action.
“Cities for Life” summit will cast greater responsibility upon the governments to give importance to biodiversity to protect all kinds of living beings to save Mother Earth. He hoped that summit will be an important event and its recommendations would surely bring a revolutionary and healthy change. Through this event, GHMC is providing a platform for Indian and foreign mayors to share their experiences. GHMC will display posters along with other global cities. GHMC’s parks wing will release a theme brochure on urban biodiversity of Hyderabad. City Biodiversity Index 2012 baseline document will also be released.
Mayor said that exhibitions will be organised on “Glimpses of Biodiversity of Greater Hyderabad”, in association with Osmania University, and on “Trees of Hyderabad” in association with Botanical Survey of India. GHMC will also showcase its “Good Practices and Activities”.
“By hosting this event the GHMC will get exposure to the on-going global initiatives which are essential to balanced city development even while retaining biodiversity,” said the mayor. GHMC intends to evolve a good strategy for biodiversity management, keeping in view of small budgetary allocations available for preserving biodiversity. This summit will also provide more clarity on the role of public representatives in biodiversity management by drawing on the experiences of public representatives from Indian and foreign Cities. Babu said that chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy will inaugurate the summit on Monday at 9 am.