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PM to inaugurate biodiversity ministerial meet

By IANS,

Hyderabad : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will Tuesday inaugurate the ministerial session at the United Nations conference on biodiversity here, which will have heads of states from various countries working to chart out a roadmap on biodiversity.

The ministerial session will see heads of state working on four primary agendas: strategic plan and resource mobilisation, biodiversity and livelihood, protecting marine and coastal biodiversity and early ratification of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol.

The Nagoya Protocol is an international legally binding treaty that works towards conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources.

About 15,000 delegates from over 185 countries are attending the 11th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) COP11, which began Oct 8 and will continue till Oct 19.

Manmohan Singh will also unveil a pylon and lay the foundation stone for a biodiversity park and museum here to mark the ongoing global biodiversity meet.

The delegates at the conference will plant 300 to 400 rare and endangered plant species in the proposed park which, along with the museum, is being built at a cost of Rs.100 crore. The Andhra Pradesh government has earmarked 15 acres of land for the pylon, park and museum in Gachibowli.

The forest department is setting up a separate biodiversity park on 10 acres at Dulapally Reserve Forests on the city outskirts. The state has six national parks, 21 wildlife sanctuaries, and a biosphere reserve comprising 13,000 square km out of the total forest area of 63,180 square km.

A biodiversity Research Laboratory has also been established at Srisailam.