During her inaugural address at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), she said resource mobilisation is the most important unfinished agenda after COP-10.
COP-11, which began here today, will discuss various issues like raising funding mechanism for implementing biodiversity protocols and benefit sharing of biodiversity resources.
"Needless to emphasise that expenditure on biodiversity needs to be looked at actually as an investment that will reap benefits for us and our future generations," she said.
"The present global economic crisis should not deter us, but on the contrary encourage us to invest more towards amelioration of the natural capital for ensuring uninterrupted ecosystem service, on which all life on earth depends," she added.
At the COP 10 in Japan, delegates agreed on 20 new targets for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for the next ten years, and developed a vision for 2050. These were named the "Aichi Targets" after the region where the meeting was held.
The new targets include increasing the area of protected land across the world to 17 per cent and protected oceans to 10 per cent, as well as the challenge to 'mainstream biodiversity information' across all levels of society, from the general public, to schools and businesses. (MORE)
