Bangladesh is poised to submit its 6th National Diversity Report to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) secretariat. 

The report provides an update on biodiversity status, trends and threats in Bangladesh, current status of the country in meeting the commitment towards achieving 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and its contributions towards it.

A validation workshop to that end was held at a hotel in Dhaka on 13 November, 2019 organised jointly by the Department of Environment (DoE) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with support from Global Environment Facility.

Citing the report on Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2019), speakers said that even 25 years after the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) was enforced, an alarming one million species are on the brink of extinction

“Although the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is on the driving seat, a whole-of-society approach is required engaging all state and non-state actors to address this issue of biodiversity depletion,” UNDP Bangladesh’s Assistant Resident Representative Khurshid Alam pointed out.

“There should be a delicate balance between development and conservation, and biodiversity conservation should be an integral part of overall development programming and budgeting,” he added.

“While everyone is aware of the convention of climate change, CBD has gone relatively unnoticed and did not get the international attention and momentum needed since heads of the powerful states never took part in the CBD conference of parties,” Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, pointed out as the chief guest.

DoE’s Director General, Dr A K M Rafique Ahmed, who chaired the event, pointed out, “Progress and focus on biodiversity is limited in Bangladesh compared to other development areas. We should mainstream biodiversity in all of our development intervention and improve environmental safeguard compliance to overcome this issue.”

Arif M Faisal, Programme Specialist of UNDP, and Solaiman Haider, Director of DoE, presented the report at the validation workshop. A wide range of stakeholders were present in this event and gave their valuable input during the feedback session.

Uptake from this report will also be included in 6th Global Biodiversity Outlook Report by CBD.