Focus on island biodiversity

CHENNAI: Ways to conserve biodiversity of islands will be the theme of the 11th Conference of Parties on biodiversity to be hosted by India in 2012. With climate change beginning to have considerable impacts on islands, ways to conserve island biodiversity is the priority of the hour and hence the priority of the meet, said Balakrishna Pisupathi, Chairman of National Biodiversity Authority, speaking to Express on the sidelines of discussion meeting organised on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi.On the key takeaways for India from the international summit to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Pisupati said the focus will be on extending the advancements made at CoP-10 in Nagoya, Japan, and on implementing new mechanisms that would benefit communities involved in conservation activities.“Coastal biodiversity, economics of biodiversity and biodiversity’s impacts on livelihoods of communities will be the major additional points of focus apart from advancing our efforts on access and benefits sharing and preparing a roadmap for executing the Nagoya targets,” Pisupathi said.The CoP-11 in Hyderabad will be noteworthy as it is widely expected that two new protocols to the convention will come into force: the Nagoya Protocol and the Na  goya - Kuala Lumpur supplementary protocol.The Union Environment Ministry is currently working on the draft texts of the conference which will be completed after two rounds of technical committee meetings to be held in Nov 2011 and April next year, said Pisupati.The basis of benefit-sharing with communities will happen effectively only if the panchayat level management committees on biodiversity are strengthened, said agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan, speaking at the meeting.“Many states have established state biodiversity boards as mandated by the biological diversity act of 2002. But most of them are yet to set up committees at panchayat levels and others are not active,” Swaminathan said.