The Ministry of Environment and Forestry on Wednesday, October 26, held a meeting with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to firm up preparations ahead of the Fifteenth UN Conference of Parties on Biological Diversity (COP 15).
Speaking during the meeting Director of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, Mr. Cyrus Mageria said there is need to upscale biodiversity conservation which will address challenges posed by climate change; “Climate change is the symptoms of a mismanagement ecosystem”.
The Director said biodiversity loss is among the biggest risk faced by humanity and last decade’s efforts to reclaim it did not produce expected results adding that “today is the last chance to put systems back on track”.
In December 2022, Parties to UN Convention on Biological Diversity will meet in Montreal to determine the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). GBF aims to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve recovery by 2050.
The Ministry together with stakeholders is working on Kenya’s country paper which will be aligned with African position and presented at COP 15.
The conference of Parties (COP) is the decision-making body for Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and will be held under the theme “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on Earth”.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry including Dr. Lucy Ng’ang’a (MEAs), John Olela (Planning) and Stephen Kingoo (Forest Conservation).
Lucy Waruingi (Africa Conservation Centre), Fiesta Warinwa (CAK), Catherine Mungai (IUCN), Olivia Odhiambo (WWF), Paula Kahumbu (Wildlife Direct) among others were in attendance.
