Biodiversity is essential for sustainable development. The variety of life, the ecosystems and their impacts form the basis for our shared wealth, health and well-being. The loss of biodiversity has its greatest impact on the poor and ultimately affects all societies and economies. A success in achieving goals and targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 will contribute significantly to the broader global priorities of eliminating poverty, improving human health and providing energy, food and clean water for all.
One year before the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2020 in Kunming, the Sino-German Dialogue Forum on “Biodiversity and Climate Change: Natural Resource Management and Finance” took place on Wednesday November 6, 2019 in Beijing, China. The Forum was co-organized by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and implemented by KfW Development Bank. The Forum received around 200 participants from politics, business, academia and finance as well as prominent speakers from China and Germany.
During the day, speakers exchanged on the status quo, challenges and best practices for biodiversity and climate change in Germany and China, financing natural resource management, and outlook on COP15. Mr. Hagen Ettner, the German Director of the Sino-German Center for Sustainable Development (CSD), introduced in his joint speech together with Dr. Wang Weisheng from the International Cooperation Center of China’s National Forestry and Grasslands Administration (NFGA) what China and Germany can do together to support other countries to tackle global challenges.
The German government supports biodiversity worldwide with 500 million Euros a year and is one of the most important donors of biodiversity finance worldwide. Germany provides financial and technical support to over 50 partner countries for conserving biodiversity and sustainable natural resource management. China has long-standing cooperation with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). It provides training programmes, financial and technical support for wildlife conservation in Africa and is taking over an increasing role in international biodiversity conservation. Synergies in overlapping areas of work can be used and efforts combined.
Within the framework of the CSD, the BMZ and the NFGA are planning to strengthen natural reserves in Africa, by supporting African countries in the implementation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Green List for effective protected area governance and management. It will make the vast technical expertise, good practices and lessons learnt China has collected in sustainable management of its protected areas and in the Green List certification process available to African partners. At the same time the cooperation project builds on the commitment of the German government to African biodiversity conservation which contributes a large part of the funds to sustainably secured protected areas.
The project is currently being explored by GIZ, IUCN, NFGA, the Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) and interested African partners.
More information about the Sino-German Dialogue Forum on Biodiversity and Climate Change can be found here.
