Mr. Chairman,
In opening, I would like to emphasize the distinctive progress that the Biodiversity Working Group has made, particularly in the past year. I would like to commend the co-chairs, Professor Wang Song and Dr. John MacKinnon, for their efforts. I also commend CIDA as well as the European Union for the funding they have made available to the Working Group; by contributing funds they have removed an important factor that has hindered progress in previous years.
The results and recommendations have become more realistic and constructive since the past year .In this context, the sectoral meetings that the Working Group held with the Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Agriculture, NEPA and other agencies have been crucial. These meetings must continus in the future. The sectoral meetings have been most relevant for the conclusions in all three areas addressed by the report: instruments, such as the biodiversity databases; research, such as is manifested with the case studies; and capacity building.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight three specific aspects of this report:
1.Biodiversity conservation is an extremely broad subject and not merely a technical matter. It has very important social and economic dimensions and not all aspects can be covered by the Working Group. I therefore support the suggestion, also made by other working groups, that a Sustainable Agriculture Working Group be established.
2.Capacity building has become a fashionable term recently, but ultimately, the effective conservation of biodiversity will hinge upon the local capacity of those people that directly depend on the biodiversity of their area. Capacity building can mean environmental education in certain areas and training and technical improvement of personnel in others. It is in the latter context that my organization improvement of personnel in others.It is in the latter context that my organization,WWF-The World Wide Fund for Nature-will test a proposal for national conservation training institute which may be a high priority for China. Obviously any such proposal will have to be based on a thorough assessment of need.
3. The establishment and maintenance of protected areas is a vital element in biodiversity conservation. However, the running of viable protected areas requires financial resources on a sustainable basis. This is the inevitable price for the multiple environmental services of these areas, at least as long as long as these areas do not generate any revenue from tourism, for example. The financial support for the important protected areas, which China is committed to increase to cover more than 10 percent of the country, remains an important issue to be resolved.
In conclusion, there is a need for concrete and good examples of integrated conservation and development. WWF is committed to contributing to existing and new examples of conservation, through its expanding China Program in the areas of the protection of Panda populations (the traditional activity of WWF since 1980), the conservation of forests and wetlands, energy technology cooperation and, of course , environmental education and capacity building.
Thank you, Mr.Chairman.