National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), as part of the World Environment Day Celebrations and Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) an initiative of the Government of India, organsied a Guest Lecture on ‘Biodiversity Finance –Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’ on 25 th May 2023 at the NIRDPR campus. Shri C. Achalender Reddy, IFS (Retd.), Chairperson, National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), Government of India, an expert on this subject and an eminent speaker delivered this lecture.
The speaker explained the concept of ‘Biodiversity Finance’which is the practice of raising capital and managing funds for biodiversity conservation. Shri Achalendar Reddy narrated with example, how the focus of biodiversity finance is shifting towards sourcing finances across a variety of funding sources from public, private and non-profits.
While giving the global scenario on the topic, the speaker mentioned that biodiversity finance as a global initiative is being piloted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which runs the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), works with 41 countries across the globe to create sustainable financial solutions that can not only protect biodiversity, but will also let it flourish.
In India, BIOFIN is led by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and hosted by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) working with the State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) of Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. India’s Biodiversity Finance Plan suggested 12 potential finance solutions to bridge the finance gap taking into account all existing financial instruments. Finance is critical to implement the entire CBD Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF) including its 23 targets and 4 goals.
Professor Ravindra Gavali, Head, Centre for Natural Resource Management, NIRDPR spoke about Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) initiative of the Government of India and its relevance to biodiversity conservation and the importance of Biodiversity Management Committees at Panchayat level.
Dr Kathiresan, Head, Centre for Research & Training Coordination & Networking (CRTCN), also spoke during this occasion. This lecture was attended by faculty, students, research scholors and participants of training programmes.
