At peace with nature

By: STA Date: 2024. 11. 05. 10:00

The protection of our natural capital, the habitats and species of our planet is a strategic issue, to this end the participants of the 16th Biodiversity Summit (COP16) adopted the Peace with Nature declaration – announced Agriculture Minister István Nagy. After Colombia, the next summit will be held in Armenia.

(Photo: AM)

The head of the ministry warned that the protection of our natural heritage is not an end in itself, but is also of strategic importance in terms of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change, protecting the earth’s living creatures, and maintaining the production potential of agriculture. With the decrease in biological diversity, species that are an important resource for nutrition and disease cure, and key genes that are essential for meeting human needs in the future, are constantly and imperceptibly lost. That is why we must consistently, unitedly and make good use of the financial resources at our disposal to maintain our created world. The protective measures taken by the Nature Conservancy may harm current economic interests, but from a national economic point of view, we are already interested in preventing the further deterioration of natural habitats and developing the network of protected natural areas – emphasized István Nagy. The minister explained that one of the priority topics of the meeting was the issue of the use of genetic information available in public databases and the sharing of the financial benefit arising from it. Thanks to these data banks, for example, vaccines against the coronavirus were developed quickly. Businesses using such information will have to contribute to a financial fund. And the available resources will help to preserve biological diversity, especially with regard to the nature conservation activities carried out by the indigenous people and local communities – stressed István Nagy.

He also mentioned that Hungary fulfilled its commitments, as it was one of the first in the world to adopt the National Biodiversity Strategy until 2030

In the past fifteen years, our country has made an unprecedented amount of nature conservation investments in order to protect biological diversity. Through our investments, we have improved the condition of more than 300,000 hectares of habitat, which is about 15% of these protected areas. Our country also developed the infrastructure of nature conservation management, the amount spent on these projects exceeded 300 million euros. Further plans are also in place, as our country will implement further nature conservation investments on at least 100,000 hectares by 2029.