Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIA will mark this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity at the town of Ruacana in the Omusati region.
Globally, the day is marked on 22 May. This year, the theme of the commemoration is ‘Building a Shared Future for All Life’, says the Bonn-based secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The theme, says the CBD, fits within the context of the ongoing United Nations, decade on ecosystem restoration (2021 – 2030), which highlights that biodiversity is the answer to several sustainable development challenges facing the world today.
Namibia is an active party to the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing and has come up with a number of interventions towards the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from the use of biological or genetic resources.
At the end of last month, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) officially opened the biological and genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge office, which regulates access to Namibia’s genetic resources and also ensures that benefits arising from genetic resources are shared fairly and equitably, as stated in the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (under the CBD).
Namibia is rich in biodiversity, with some animals and plant species only found in the country and nowhere else in the world.
In Namibia, the International Day for Biological Diversity will be marked with guest speakers, presentations from school pupils and a biodiversity competitions prize-giving.
There will also be a possibility for a biodiversity excursion after the formal event, organised by the MEFT with financial support from GIZ and the European Union.
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