The Indian Biodiversity Forum has called upon the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect the customary and traditional biodiversity-related practices of the local communities.
A Thiruvananthapuram-based ecologist, S. Faizi, who is representing the forum at the Conference of Parties to the Convention, said that such protection could be a means to eradicate poverty.
“We reaffirm the glaring fact that the loss of biodiversity accelerates rural poverty as does the lack of access to biodiversity for the poor either in the name of ill-conceived conservation or development.”
Dr. Faizi said that reforming the tenurial systems and recognising the tenurial rights in regard to agricultural land and biodiversity were critical to both enhancing biodiversity and reducing poverty, and hence the Parties should undertake that exercise without delay.
“No conservation activity that negatively affects the poor and vulnerable people should be undertaken, but when that has to be done, it should be done only with the voluntary consent of the affected people and providing compensation in line with the estimated economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
He cautioned that the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was unnecessary as it was a duplication of existing organisations.
It was not lack of information that impeded conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and benefit sharing, but the lack of political will and resources.
Source:The Hindu 13October 2012