Another Biodiversity Conservation Award for Namibia

A Dandelion flower  with its 3 dimensional appearance... an ideal  representation of the hyper-dimensional nature of holistic biodiversity conservation

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Namibia Association of Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) Organisations (conservancies) will jointly receive the 2012 Markhor Award for Outstanding Conservation Performance at  the upcoming 11th Conference of Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD)  scheduled for Hyderabad, India, from October 8 to 19.

The Conference of Parties to the CBD is the governing body of the Convention and meets every two years to review progress in the implementation of the Convention to adopt programmes to help in achieving its objectives and to promote policy guidelines.

Emanating from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the CBD came into force on December 29 1993 and Namibia signed and ratified it in 1992 and 1997 respectively. 

The Hyderabad conference will be preceded by the sixth Meeting of Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity from October 1 to 5.

As an active member of the CBD, Namibia will participate in all these meetings.

Namibia served as the chief spokesperson for Africa in international negotiations on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing and is a member of the international bureau tasked with organizing and preparing the conference.

According to Minister Nandi-Ndaitwah from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism “Namibia is at the final stage to finalise the National Law on Access and Benefit Sharing, to enable our people have a maximum benefit of the Nagoya Protocol”

  

The CBD, is a legally binding international environmental agreement, to promote the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the equitable benefit sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said this prestigious prize is awarded by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation, in recognition of Namibia’s excellent success in the areas of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.