31/03/2011
The Brazilian Environment Minister, Izabella
Teixeira, met on Wednesday (March 30), in
Brasília, the Minister for the Environment
and International Development of Norway,
Erik Solheim. They discussed environmental
issues related to the cooperation agreement
between the two countries, especially challenges
in the biodiversity and climate change agendas.
The ministers also discussed
the Protocol of Nagoya, the Climate and
the Amazon Funds, the control of deforestation
in the Brazilian biomes and the need for
change in the agricultural matrix in Brazil.
They also talked about the control of fires,
the investments for adaptation to the climate
change effects and the conservation of the
coastal zone, especially the protection
of coral reefs.
Izabella Teixeira and
Erik Solheim scheduled the next meeting
between the two countries for the second
half of 2011, probably in September, in
the city of Rio de Janeiro.
+ More
Study identifies economic
incentives as a key to saving biodiversity
24/03/2011
A new report from the Convention on Biodiversity
on the role of economic incentives in shaping
environmental behavior concludes that the
removal of subsidies which lead to environmentally
damaging practices, and the promotion of
incentive schemes that promote positive
ones, can produce economic and environmental
benefits if they are coordinated and well-implemented.
The report incentive
measures for the conservation and sustainable
use of biological diversity: case-studies
and lessons learned is the result of a series
of international workshops on incentive
measures held in 2009, and builds on the
work undertaken under the study on The Economics
of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).
It provides key information
on the reform of harmful incentives and
the promotion of positive incentive measures,
identifies succinct lessons learned, and
presents a geographically balanced set of
concrete cases.
"If humanity is
going to achieve a sustainable future of
living in harmony with nature, we are going
to need to change our economic behavior",
said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary
of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
"This report shows the ways that we
can move away from our disastrous business-as-usual
practices."
Reforming perverse incentives,
in particular environmentally harmful subsidies
that under-price natural resources or encourage
unsustainable increases in production, for
example, has multiple benefits. It stops
encouraging environmentally harmful behavior,
may remove wider economic distortions, and,
in the case of harmful subsidies, may free
up scarce fiscal resources. Moreover, removing
or mitigating perverse incentives can reduce
the need to introduce positive incentive
measures.
Measures that provide
incentives to conserve biodiversity and
use its components in a sustainable manner,
such as payment for ecosystem services,
or performance payments for sustainable
agricultural practices, as well as other
indirect measures, such as community-managed
systems for natural resource management,
are increasingly recognized as an important
tool to ensure that biodiversity considerations
are reflected in all relevant economic sectors
- that they are "mainstreamed"
across government and society.
The Strategic Plan for
Biodiversity 2011-2020 reflects the urgent
need to act on incentive measures by calling
for the removal, phasing out, or reform,
by 2020, of incentives, including subsidies
harmful to biodiversity, and for the development
and application of positive incentives for
the conservation and sustainable use of
biodiversity.
The report, released
as CBD Technical Series Nº 56, is available
on the website of the Convention at www.cbd.int/ts.
Source: Secretariat of the Convention on
Biological Diversity / United Nations Environment
Programme
