Kathmandu, Oct 1. Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has stressed the need to strike a balance between people’s rights over natural resources and sustained efforts in biodiversity conservation.

Addressing the ‘UN Summit on Biodiversity’ held on Wednesday on the margins of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly, he dubbed biodiversity resources as humanity’s common lifeline connecting generations and surpassing national boundaries.

The Prime Minister said that Nepal accorded high priority to biodiversity conservation. Living in harmony with nature is a part of Nepali Culture. Biodiversity protection constitutes a critical component of Nepal’s aspiration of ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’, he stated.

He underlined the unique mountain ecosystem of Nepal as the true source of knowledge to inquisitive scholars, researchers, and scientists. He also shared the major achievements and success stories of Nepal in biodiversity conservation and underscored the need to harmonize the efforts under multilateral agreements and internationally agreed development frameworks.

Emphasizing climate action as a moral obligation, the Prime Minister called for requisite political will, innovative ideas, and robust action from all stakeholders in biodiversity conservation.

“Twenty-three percent of our geography has been designated as protected area and we have achieved Aichi Target – 11. We have a plan to expand it to 30 percent by 2030”, the PM added.

Nepal’s progress in landscape level conservation and trans-boundary cooperation on migratory species are considered as success stories, he said, adding so is the engaging of communities to managing human–wildlife conflict.

Through strong law enforcement system and enhanced cooperation at international level, we have achieved zero-poaching of rhino for almost a decade, PM Oli shared on the occasion. “We have almost doubled the number of tigers well ahead of the target year of 2022”.

The Summit held virtually under the theme of ‘Urgent Action on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development’, featured a total of 144 speakers including 67 Heads of State/Government and 68 Ministers.

PM Oli extended thanks to the Secretary General of the United Nations for convening such important Summit.