The Ministry of Rural Development and the National Society of Conservationists (NSC) held a joint conference on the preservation of biological diversity on 6 November. The apropos for the event was that a global Summit involving 170 countries was convened two weeks ago in India by the decision-making bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

At the opening ceremony of the conference hosted by the Ministry of Rural Development, Deputy State Secretary Katalin Tóth, who represented Hungary at the Summit in India, reported on the main results of the discussions.

She informed the participants of the conference that they had examined many international commitments and further measures needed for the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity until 2020. She stressed that the issue that attracted the greatest debate was the deployment of the financial, technical and human resources needed for the realisation of the objectives of the Strategic Plan. Katalin Tóth also reported on the fact that, after long and arduous discussions, the nations of the world had agreed that they would significantly increase the level of funding earmarked for the preservation of biodiversity, in the interests of the implementation of the Strategic Plan. The Deputy State Secretary also highlighted the fact that Hungary's position in the Carpathian Basin makes it the possessor of a hugely rich biological depository. As a concrete achievement, she mentioned the fact that thanks to the Swiss-Hungarian Cooperation Programme, the number of green kindergartens and eco-schools in Hungary is rising. The institutions in question also receive significant professional support, she added, and these results will have a long-term effect at a practical realisation level.

Friedrich Wulf, an expert from the Pro Natura Conservation Organisation, also presented some good examples of practical solutions from policies related to the preservation of biodiversity. He told the conference that as a result of serious preparative work and the significant participation of NGOs, the Swiss strategy on the preservation of biodiversity had been adopted in April of 2012, and serves the realisation of the global objectives determined in 2010.

The global objectives related to biodiversity were determined at a regional level in 2011 during the Hungarian Presidency of the EU, when Environment Ministers from the countries of the European Union adopted the EU Biodiversity Strategy. The latest conference explored the question of what are the main challenges and objectives of international, EU and domestic biodiversity preservation. Participants at the conference primarily included non-governmental organisations, research institutes, universities, and experts from the related ministries.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)