Biodiversity a focus area for supreme audit institutions: CAG

Biodiversity issues are becoming an important focus area for the supreme audit institutions in India as also other parts of the world, Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Shashi Kant Sharma said today.
At the office of the CAG of India, an expert panel discussed the economic valuation of ecosystems and how national parks are engines of economic growth and stimulants of livelihood within their zone of influence, according to an official statement today said.
The panelists shared their experiences of international best practices and covered the criticality of making citizens "Green aware", and converting research into policy, it added.

The statement said that one key thought was how institutions like that of the CAG could work to give timely inputs to the policy makers to fine tune the public policy on these critical areas.
CAG Sharma chaired the discussion and the panelists were Professor Timothy R Boosinger of Auburn University in USA; Professor Robert Hugh Jones of Clemson University, South Carolina, USA; Professor Robert Fritz Baldwin of Clemson University, among others.