FAO Unveils 3 Year Plan to Safeguard Biodiversity
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has launched a three year plan (2024-2027) for the implementation of mainstreaming biodiversity across agricultural sectors.
According to FAO’s Director General, QU Dongyu, the plan supersedes an earlier 2021-2023 document, explaining that the plan has been further streamlined better to serve the strategy’s aims to reduce the negative impacts of agricultural practices on biodiversity, promote sustainable agricultural practices and conserve, enhance, preserve and restore biodiversity as a whole.
He stated that the action plan sets out a wide range of deliverables including support for countries in the implementation and monitoring of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Biodiversity Plan).
Dongyu said in a video message to celebrate the International Day for Biodiversity tagged “Be Part of the Plan” noted that the new FAO Action Plan fully aligns with the Biodiversity Plan and includes FAO’s Biodiversity Knowledge Hub, providing a ‘one-stop shop’ to facilitate access to knowledge on biodiversity for food and agriculture.
“It compiles over 350 tools, guidelines and other resources on biodiversity developed by FAO that can be searched and filtered, including by targets of the Biodiversity Plan,” FAO said.
Qu said biodiversity: “is what we farm, catch, harvest and cultivate. It is what supports our food networks from pollinators to micro-organisms in our soils. It is what prospers livelihoods of farmers, forest managers and dwellers, fishers, livestock keepers and pastoralists across the world.”
He pointed out that the theme is rallying call to the public and diverse actors to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, endorsed in December 2022, and also known as The Biodiversity Plan.
“FAO is an integral part of this plan, as agrifood systems are a powerful channel for readily available and scalable solutions to conserving, restoring and sustainably using biodiversity,” FAO added.
The statement stressed that by advocating for sustainable agricultural practices that safeguard biodiversity and enhance ecosystem resilience, FAO is helping to reduce a key driver of biodiversity loss and protecting vulnerable rural communities, maintaining that by partnering with governments, civil society and the private sector, FAO is helping mainstream biodiversity across the food and agricultural sectors, across policies and programmes.
“In concrete terms, this can mean anything from working to restore coastal mangrove forests which host a rich variety of fish species to supporting farming systems which help to preserve biodiversity for food and agriculture in a way that improves people’s nutrition and benefits the environment,” FAO averred.
