United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 2012
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with its 193 parties or delegates is the globe’s most important conference on protecting the planet’s diminishing biodiversity – it is the conference that covers life on earth and the use of the planet’s natural habitats. The 11th Conference of Parties of the CBD is being hosted by the Indian government in Hyderabad.
Greenpeace, is calling on the Indian government to demonstrate leadership in front of the international delegates attending the conference by defending the rich biodiversity that lies within its own borders. At CBD COP 11, countries are mandated to ensure that the process to enact the Aichi targets adopted is ambitiously taken forward.
Greenpeace is demanding that the Indian government must:
- Immediately declare a moratorium on all further forest and environmental clearances for coal mining and coal-fired power plants as it will lead to the destruction of millions of hectares of forest and further endanger the habitat of the Indian tiger.
- Protect the tribal and indigenous communities that are being forcibly removed from forest areas to make way for coal mines
- Revoke mining clearances already granted in known biodiversity hotspots.
- Open to public consultation, the process to declare forest areas off limits to coal mining based on their biodiversity value, hydrological importance, forest density and livelihood dependence for local communities.
- Stop overcapacity and over exploitation including illegal fishing practices
- Prevent destructive fishing practices like bottom trawling and regulating old trawlers and capping the number of licensed vessels.
- Strengthen legal protection of the oceans and the rights of traditional fisher communities
- Create Marine Reserves in consultation with local fishing communities
Find out more about the CBD, especially what Greenpeace is doing at the CBD on this page.