Biological diversity is essential to successful and sustainable development cooperation

There was standing room only in the atrium of GTZ’s Berlin Representation when German Development Minister Dirk Niebel set out the economic value of biological diversity by attaching imaginary ‘price tags’ to fauna and flora. The strong attendance by policymakers at the kick-off event for the joint GTZ and KfW Spotlight of the Year – ‘Diversity – Driver for Development’ – showed how biodiversity and food security are shaping current development discourse.

Bernd Eisenblätter, GTZ Managing Director, and Norbert Kloppenburg, member of the KfW Bankengruppe Managing Board, started off by highlighting why diversity is so important in development cooperation. The goal, they stressed, is to ensure that people are free to make their own choices. Both noted that conserving biodiversity is not an end in itself, but an essential part of sustainable development, and they went on to underpin this by presenting the outcomes of a joint nature conservation project in Brazil.

Development Minister Niebel then took the floor, proclaiming that ‘Nature’s bounty is not inexhaustible’. Biodiversity is ‘a matter of survival’ and must be moved higher up the agenda, both in development policy and among the public at large. With additional pledges totalling 500 million euros by 2012 and a clear strategy, German development policy is stepping up the struggle to halt resource loss and the ensuing poverty. The aim is not only to conserve and make sustainable use of ecosystems and species diversity, but also to distribute the benefits arising from diversity more equitably. ‘A fair reward gives people a strong incentive to protect the vital resources around them,’ Niebel said, underscoring once more the economic potential of biological diversity.

Each of the experts on the panel argued the case for protecting and making equitable use of nature’s gifts. Manfred Niekisch, Director of Frankfurt Zoo, Regine Andersen, of Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen Institute, and Hermann Belch, environmental affairs manager at Faber Castell company, left no doubt about the risks arising from the loss of species and varietal diversity. But they also gave examples of work under way to halt such loss, be it cultivating the Hoodia plant in Africa, conserving forests in Brazil or maintaining the diversity of rice varieties in Nepal. They showed, together KfW and GTZ staff, how the benefit-sharing that Minister Niebel had called for can become a reality for people on the ground, and how a shared perception of nature conservation can be forged. Event presenter Christina zur Mühlen, loosely quoting Voltaire, wrapped up the event by noting that ‘We are also responsible for what we do not do’, and that the achievements so far are just the first step in the change of course called for by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

^{Development Minister Niebel during his opening speech . Photo: David Ausserhofer}

Information of KfW Entwicklungsbank about the joint Spotlight of the Year (in german)
www.kfw-entwicklungsbank.de/...