ACB at World Sustainable Development Summit: collaboration, biodiversity mainstreaming key to post-pandemic economy
12 February 2021– The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) on Thursday joined a virtual global event on sustainable development hosted by India, underscoring the roles of regional and subregional collaboration and mainstreaming of biodiversity in building a resilient post-pandemic economy.
With over 100 speakers representing different sectors and organisations around the globe, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) held the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) 2021 from 10 to 12 February. The 20th staging of the summit with the theme Redefining Our Common Future: Safe and Secure Environment for All took a virtual platform. Among the summit’s speakers were His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana; John F. Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate; Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of the Ministry of External Affairs of India; Erik Solheim, Former Minister of International Development and Minister of the Environment, Norway; and His Excellency Ugo Astuto Ambassador of the European Union to India.
The inauguration of the WSDS 2021 was led by the Honourable Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi. In his message, the honourable prime minister highlighted that to solve the global climate issues, people need to do more than the traditional approaches. “Two things will define how the progress generally of humanity will unfold in the times to come. Firstly, the health of our people. Second, the health of our planet. Both are interlinked”, the prime minister said. He emphasised that as it has become more apparent that conventional approaches alone cannot solve the challenges we are facing, climate justice must be the path we should be treading.
The ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim, during the session on the Role of Biodiversity Conservation in a Green and Resilient Post-pandemic Economy, shared that a key component of the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework and its Implementation Plan is the development of mechanisms to increase investments in natural solutions, wildlife enforcement, and habitat protection.
Lim furthered that the region’s strategic direction towards recovery recognises biodiversity as a cross-cutting issue. Thus, strengthening biodiversity mainstreaming becomes imperative in the implementation of the framework.
Highlighting the importance of collaborative work, Lim stressed, “For these approaches to be effective, robust cooperation within the ASEAN region and across regions is critical. Countries in the same region and subregion are often similarly situated, and frequently share common development narratives, challenges, and opportunities. With the interconnectivity of our ecosystems, we have more reasons to work closely together through meaningful partnerships, science-policy dialogues and conscientious exchanges of information, knowledge, and practices within and across the region and subregions.”
Joining Lim in the panel were Executive Secretary of the UNEP and Secretariat of Convention on Migratory Species Amy Fraenkel, Head of Ecosystems and Biodiversity of the United Nations Development Programme Dr. Midori Paxton, Co-Chair of the open-ended working group on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity Basile van Havre, Director of TERI’s Land Resources Division Dr. J.V. Sharma, and Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change India B.V. Umadevi.
Åslaug Marie Haga, associate vice-president of the External Relations and Governance Department of Norway’s International Fund for Agricultural Development in her keynote address emphasised on lost opportunities and options as a result of biodiversity loss. The former Norwegian minister and diplomat further underscored the importance of agrobiodiversity, along with tools and knowledge to enable small-scale farmers to be “agents of change.”
Fraenkel in her message, meanwhile, stressed the value of cooperation among countries in conserving migratory species and cited studies that show the positive relationship between the risks increasing the likelihood of infectious diseases and the risks causing the decline of species.
The virtual session was chaired by Dr. Vinod Mathur, chairperson of India’s National Biodiversity Authority
The WSDS is the annual flagship event of TERI, and is designed to make sustainable development a shared goal across all countries.
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