India wants to raise awareness on biodiversity conservation

India would aim to share with other developing countries its knowledge on biodiversity conservation to alleviate poverty during its presidency of Conference of Parties (COP), a government official said today.

We have more than 8.5 per cent of the biodiversity in the world and about 18 per cent of the global population. We would like to work with other developing countries in sharing this knowledge in capacity building and on the issue of raising awareness, M F Farooqui, Special Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, told reporters here.

He was speaking at the ongoing UN convention on biological diversity. India assumed presidency of the COP 11 to Convention on Biological Diversity on October 8 here from Japan. The other thing on which India has a very positive position is on making use of biodiversity to provide livelihood. This is another experience which we would like to share. Finally, mainstreaming, so that biodiversity is built into the programmes of other ministries, not only within the country but in most of the other developing countries. That is how we want to see our presidency go. We want this presidency to be remembered for how it cared for poor people and brought biodiversity on the agenda of poverty alleviation in a big way, Farooqui said.

- PTI