“We do not capitalize on the wonders of biodiversity. We only deal with threats and we are losing the battle. I will tell you why our biodiversity policy has so little effect.” In the airport lounge a few weeks ago, I had bumped into a high official of a Ministry of Environment, I had previously worked with. And after some small talk our conversation focused on our common passion for positive change. He was preoccupied with the obstacles.
“Ecology is a very complex science, we are always behind the social-economic dynamics, and money wise biodiversity is a low priority compared to climate change or security. And then I am not even talking about the problems in our bureaucracy, the adverse subsidies, the lack of public support. So tell me, what should we do different?” “If the answer was simple, you would not even ask the question”, I tried. But he insisted and we started talking about our recent experiences of what worked and what did not work. I told him about the blog and the CEPA toolkit. And by the time our planes left, I had enough to work out the matrix below of do's and don'ts when implementing a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). It is a bit like the short article
‘Communicating Nature Conservation: Ten Frequently Made Mistakes’, I wrote almost ten years ago. The
CEPA toolkit addresses these issues in more detail in section 3 about mainstreaming and stakeholder involvement.
No comments:
Post a Comment