AM: preserving biological diversity is our common duty

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As written, István Nagy reminded that Hungary, through its new agricultural support system, is helping biodiversity conservation and sectoral integration with a number of measures. Thanks to the new frameworks that come into effect in January, it is possible to have a great impact on the diversity of the living world, since more than 50 percent of the territory of our country is under agricultural cultivation.

The minister added: for example, the agricultural support system was expanded with an Agro-ecology Program operating on a voluntary basis

In this context, farmers receive financial assistance for the preservation of biological diversity, for increasing the mosaic of the landscape, for improving the condition of soils and water balance, for protecting pollinators, and for their measures to support the more sustainable use of plant protection products. Compared to the previous ones, it is a significant improvement that areas wedged between agricultural fields, not used for production, but of particular importance from the point of view of biodiversity conservation, can also receive support. Thanks to the measure, critically important border and wetland habitats will also be able to grow – emphasized István Nagy. The minister also drew attention to the developments carried out in the past decade in order to maintain biological diversity. He also mentioned that our country has improved and is improving the condition of the habitats on more than 300,000 hectares of our protected areas, which make up more than a fifth of Hungary’s territory, and ensures the infrastructure conditions for nature conservation management.

The amount spent on investments exceeded 300 million euros

Another goal is to implement new nature conservation developments on at least 100,000 hectares in the next five years. More than 70 percent of the EUR 112 million allocated for this purpose will be used for nature restoration and the development of the infrastructure that ensures nature conservation management, while the remaining part is planned for the implementation of projects aimed at improving nature conservation presentation, education and monitoring, as well as renewing our nature conservation information systems – listed the minister. The AM reminded in its statement that the Convention on Biological Diversity was born three decades ago in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The importance of the convention is that it takes a position at the highest level of international politics in determining the relationship between society and the living world, as well as biological diversity. With the exception of the United States and the Vatican, all states of the world (196 parties) are members of the convention. The event in Montreal is of historic importance, as the countries of the world will approve the World Biodiversity Conservation Strategy here, which sets out the main objectives for the next decade in order to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss worldwide, the statement said. As you can read, within the framework of the decision-making session, the countries of the world also adopted the global strategy for the international regulation of GMOs until 2030, and the secretariat of the Convention asked Rita Andorkó, an expert from the Ministry of Agriculture, to chair the meetings of the working group responsible for its development.

MTI