The Delegation of the European Union to China launched today a new action on Innovative Financing Mechanisms (IFM) for Biodiversity protection in China, a one-year project funded under the EU's Partnership Instrument to exchange experiences between China and Europe. The action will help provide a meaningful and relevant input to the forthcoming Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (CoP 13) that will be held in Cancun from the 4-17 December 2016.
The kick-off seminar took place at the Institute of Geography and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Science and boasted the presence of several international and Chinese experts. It will be followed up by an experts' meeting on the same topic later this week with the objective to deepen the discussion on how to mobilise resources to support biodiversity and ecosystems services in the region.
At the opening event, Vicky Pollard, Environment Counsellor at the EU Delegation to China said that “nature is our life support - for now and future generations. We need to find ways to protect biological diversity and ecosystem services such as flood protection, water purification, pollination, the species that provide food, medicines and others essentials. We are working with China on how to do this better, how to finance the protection of biodiversity".
This initial event addressed the current state of the art of theoretical and empirical issues as well as best practices regarding a variety of IFMs (such as Payments for Environmental Services, biodiversity offsets, etc.) in Asia and Europe, with a particular focus on China. Based on the organisation of workshops and studies with the participation of EU and Asian experts, the project will facilitate exchanges of experiences, aiming at deriving lessons from best practice examples and producing recommendations to practitioners and policy makers.
The action is also in line with the objectives of the EU's 7th Environment Action Programme to 2020 and the EU's Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, where the European Commission promotes the development and use of innovative financing mechanisms, including market based instruments.
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Details
- Publication date
- 24 May 2016
- Author
- Service for Foreign Policy Instruments