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Biodiversity
Conserving biodiversity – an issue for German development cooperation
Our survival is dependent on Earth's genetic resources, which are the basis of the entire global food supply. At the same time, they are the world's most important source of employment and income. Moreover, biodiversity will have an important role to play in future in mitigating the potential impacts of climate change.
Most of the world's genetic and biological diversity is to be found in developing countries. For the people who live there, these natural resources underpin their livelihoods, providing them with both food and medication.
Safeguarding this natural wealth is therefore vital to the success of efforts to fight global poverty. It is both an ecological and a social imperative. Since all countries depend on having guaranteed access to genetic resources, conserving those resources is a task that must be taken on by the entire international community.
Germany's engagement
The German government is engaged in efforts to conserve biodiversity both at home and in the international arena.
Conserving biodiversity, promoting its sustainable use and ensuring that its benefits are equitably shared are issues that are mainstreamed in all Germany's programmes with its partner countries in development cooperation. In other words, it is an aim that must be integrated into all projects.
But conserving biodiversity is also a field of activity in its own right within German development policy. It involves developing strategies and working methods for conserving complete ecosystems and ensuring that they are used sustainably.
Germany currently supports its partner countries with around 190 programmes and projects concerned with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The priority areas of these projects all focus on supporting one or more of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. In addition, countries are supported in establishing institutions to deal with biosafety matters.
At the Ninth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Bonn in 2008, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, pledged that Germany would make available an additional 500 million euros during the period from 2009 to 2012 to support the implementation of the Convention objectives in developing countries and emerging economies. From 2013, 500 million euros per year will continue to be invested in this work. The full amount of these additional resources will be deployed within the scope of development cooperation. Commitments to this area for the year 2009 are being raised by more than 40 million euros to over 210 million euros.
It is impossible to protect biodiversity unless people are adequately informed about the diversity of species and ecosystems, and so educating the public – both in developing countries and here in Germany – is also an important aim of German development policy.
