Do livelihoods contribute to the deterioration or promotion of biodiversity? How?
Answers
A tribal village in the Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu. These villages are leading the way in revitalising the conservation traditions of tribal families, without compromising on their economic well-being.
Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.
Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted at the 1992 U.N.
Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.
Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The triple goals of the Convention are conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing of benefits. It recognises that a country's biodiversity is the sovereign property of its people. India is a signatory to the CBD and has enacted the National Biodiversity Act, in force from 2002.
In spite of the importance given to biodiversity conservation, genetic erosion continues globally. Twelve per cent of birds, 21 per cent of mammals, 30 per cent of amphibians, 27 per cent of coral reefs and 35 per cent of conifers and cycads face extinction. According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), over 47,677 species may soon disappear. A study published in Science (April 29, 2010) found no notable decrease in the rate of biodiversity loss between 1970 and 2010.
To generate awareness about genetic resources conservation, each year May 22 is observed as the International Day for Biological Diversity. The U.N. has designated 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. Leaders from 170 countries will gather at a U.N. Biodiversity Summit in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010 to adopt a roadmap to stop biodiversity loss. The challenge is for every country to develop an implementable strategy to save rare, endangered and threatened species through education, social mobilisation and regulation. The Nagoya Summit will lead to meaningful results only if biodiversity conservation is considered in the context of sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Indira Gandhi said at the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972 that unless the needs of the poor and of the environment are attended to concurrently, the task of saving environmental assets will not be easy. Biodiversity loss is predominantly related to habitat destruction largely for commercial exploitation, and for alternative uses such as road-building. Invasive alien species and unsustainable development cause genetic erosion. How can we reverse the paradigm and enlist development as an effective instrument to conserve biodiversity? Some examples will illustrate how biodiversity conservation and development can become mutually reinforcing.