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| Saturday, 22 May 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Biodiversity, most important concept today - Minister Fowzie Biodiversity is one of the most important concepts in the field of environment and it is simply a concept of the variations of living organisms with the dimensions of scientific, economic, social and ethical. The landmark event was the adoption of the conventions on Biological Diversity in 1992, states Environment and Natural Resources Minister A. H. M. Fowzie issuing a statement to mark the World Biodiversity Day, which falls today. "This year's theme "Biodiversity-Food, Water and Health for all," is closely applicable to our country because Sri Lanka is one of the major biodiversity 'Hot Spot," identified by the International Scientific Community," the statement issued by the Minister said. The full text: "It gives me great pleasure to release this statement to commemorate the World Biodiversity Day, that is 22nd May. Biodiversity, as understood today is one of the most important concepts in the field of environment in a global, regional and national context. Biodiversity is simply, a concept of the variations of living organisms, with the dimensions of scientific, economic, social, ethical etc. The land mark event of the biodiversity was the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 and my Ministry which is the National focal point has full responsibility to implement the articles of this convention for conservation and sustainable use of our biodiversity. Until recently the biodiversity of country remained intact with little loss. Changing priorities beginning with colonial influences have caused immense damage to the diversity. It has been further aggravated by the growing populations which increasingly seek the consumeristic way of the life. Meeting these demands has changed the traditional way of exploiting resources, resulting in many instances, in rapid depletion of the resources. To arrest or slowdown the loss of biodiversity my Ministry already took action to prepare implement the Framework Action Plan on Biodiversity Conservation Main conservation departments such as department of Forest Conservation and Wildlife Conservation played an important role to promote ex-situ conservation in more than 25 per cent of the country. Policies and strategies of biodiversity related fields such as biotechnology, traditional knowledge, information management are being formulated. The theme of this year World Biodiversity Day is "Biodiversity-Food, Water and Health for all" is very closely applicable to our country because Sri Lanka is one of the major biodiversity "Hot Spots" identified by the international scientific community and most of the citizens are depending directly or indirectly on biodiversity. As an agricultural country, our crop and domesticated animal diversity gives enormous benefits to the people and the diversity of crop wild relatives has also potential value for food security. Protection of pollinators and soil microorganism diversity which is important factor to increase the agricultural productivity is one of our main responsibilities. Our biodiversity creates good watersheds in the central hill mass as well as other catchment areas in the country and provides quality water for people and other uses with minimizing soil erosion. The value of our biodiversity in connection with clean water supply is enormous. Therefore, conservation of highland biodiversity is today's our main priority. Indigenous biodiversity gives our traditional medicines and even western medicine has also based totally the formulas of chemical compounds extracted for the fauna and flora. Conservation of diversity of medicinal plants in Sri Lanka has global benefit because potential value of bioprospecting specially for pharmaceuticals for HIV, cancer and other diseases. Biodiversity is everybody's concern and cross sectoral in nature therefore without community and other institutional support, my Ministry cannot conserve biodiversity. So, our endeavour, today, is conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through broad community participation and effective coordinating mechanism. I wish, in this important international day, we can achieve our conservation goals and support to eradicate poverty by using benefits arising from sustainable use of biodiversity." |
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