Aichi biodiversity heads of agencies task force established with 25 global partners

Montreal, 20 September 2011 – At a signing ceremony organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed with 25 of the largest international agencies, organizations and environmental conventions for implementation and achievement of the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. The signing ceremony took place at the margins of the high-level event on desertification of the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly with the participation of Katsuhiko Yokomitsu, Vice Minister of the Environment of Japan representing the President of the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10), held in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010. The memorandum creates a task force to provide a platform for agencies to coordinate their activities in support of the achievement of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets are a set of 20, time-bound, measureable targets agreed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010, that are now being translated into revised national strategies and action plans by the 193 Parties to the Convention. Achievement of the targets, which were welcomed at the sixty-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly, will contribute to reducing, and eventually halting, the loss of biodiversity at a global level by the middle of the twenty-first century.

“Achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets requires the active engagement of all stakeholders without exception, as well as the global commitment of their partners,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. “It is for that reason, we are glad that so many agencies and organizations have agreed to join forces and support the translation of the Aichi Targets into a vibrant reality.”

In order to promote synergies and avoid duplication, the participants unanimously appointed the co-chairs of the seventeenth session of the Environment Management Group, Mr. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Rebeca Grynspan, Associate Administrator of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The participants unanimously appointed Mrs. Monique Barbut, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), as the goodwill ambassador of the task force.