September 13, 2012 witnessed that the “International Forum on Biodiversity and Green Development” was successfully held in Beijing. Secretary-General of the China National Committee of Biodiversity Conservation, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) Li Ganjie attended the forum and delivered a keynote speech. Chairman of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation Hu Deping also addressed an important speech. Representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Secretariat of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and international agencies participated in the event and made addresses respectively. Hosted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the forum was organized by Foreign Economic Cooperation Office (FECO,MEP) and co-organized by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project “Priority Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Development to Implement China Biodiversity Partnership and Framework for Action”. Mr. Chen Liang, Acting Director-General of FECO presided over the signing ceremony and Ms. Li Pei, Deputy Director-General of FECO delivered a closing remark and wrapped up the forum.

Vice Minister Li Ganjie pointed out that promotion of the biological diversity conservation and advancement of green development is integral part of the search for a new path to environmental protection, with the aim to explore biodiversity-friendly green development, characterized by realization of multiple wins to achieve economic, social and ecological benefits at multi-levels of community, nation and globe. The means to this end include complying with the law of nature, giving a full play for biodiversity to produce ecological goods and services, expediting transition to green socio-economic development, etc. He also stressed that biodiversity paves the way for green development. Mainstreaming, extensive international cooperation and effective undertaking will help find the way to achieve the biodiversity friendly pattern of green development that harmonizes conservation, improvement of economic efficiency and social justice.

Hu Deping put forward six proposals for biodiversity conservation: firstly, resolutely implement the "12th Five-Year Plan” and apply gross domestic production costs as an important indicator for evaluation, while keeping the momentum of developing green GDP; secondly, proceed with evaluation for all types of enterprises in China by applying unified standards in green economy, low carbon economy and environmental protection; thirdly, strengthen biodiversity in-situ / ex-situ conservation mechanism and institutional arrangement; fourthly, effectively establish obligating mechanism and authority reinforcing mechanism in ecological environment in China's western regions; fifthly, actively explore diverse approaches including business-oriented mode of operation to fund biodiversity conservation and mobilize more social capital for injecting into the construction of nature reserves; sixthly, support renewable energy.

Ms. Li Yanduan, Special Representative for Climate Change Negotiation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that biodiversity conservation demands strengthened international collaboration and encouraged undertaking of common responsibilities by governments of all countries; moreover, it also requires trans-departmental coordination, cross-sectoral participation and communication between biodiversity related departments and the business world should be reinforced; it is also important for awareness of biodiversity conservation to be promoted and take root in the mind of the general public.

Liang Ziqian, Deputy Director-General, the Ministry of Finance, pointed out that biodiversity conservation is the common responsibility for the international community, and it remains a national strategic priority in many countries, including China. As the focal point of Global Environment Facility (GEF), MOF has been actively promoting the use of international funds to support domestic biodiversity conservation work in order to meet the requirement of implementing the national development strategies; China Biodiversity Partnership and Framework for Action (CBPF) is an innovational mode achieved from cooperation between the Chinese government and GEF and it was originally developed by MOF, together with MEP. MOF will continue supporting MEP and relevant departments to take active part in international collaboration in biodiversity conservation, introduction of international funds, strengthening exchanges of technology and knowledge, sharing of the experience drawn and lessons learnt in the field of biodiversity conservation, so as to jointly promote worldwide biodiversity protection undertakings.

Mr. Ravi Sharma, head of implementation, technical support and outreach division of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD),introduced the current international biodiversity conservation status, and pointed out that biodiversity conservation needs huge investment. However, the benefits generated from biodiversity conservation can exceed the investment, in which the private sector will play an important role in the overall configuration of diversified resource input from the international community. The Parties of CBD shall promote introduction & dissemination of best practices in mainstreaming biodiversity conservation by encouraging the private sector to participate and by facilitating the efforts to release initiatives at the national / regional levels.
Pan Jiahua, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) addressed to the audience the four erroneous zones related to biodiversity conservation that the general public are likely to misunderstand, and then presented domestic and foreign cases to illustrate the definition of green development, in both broad and narrow sense. He came forward that green development is an all-round development so that relations between production, consumption and stock should be considered at the technological level, legislation, policy and regulation should be safeguarded at the institutional level while planning, quality control and governance should be coordinated at the managerial level.

Assistant Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mr. Carsten Germer pointed out that there were two specific points that had been particularly made on the occasion of just-concluded “Rio+20 Summit Meeting”: firstly, protection of environemnt and ecosystem is vitally signiciant to economic growth and therefore governments and citizens of all countries should make their due efforts to realize global prosperity; secondly, green development is a means to materializing sustainable development, through strengthening cooperation with enterprises and raising their awareness in corprorate social responsibility (CSR) in the field of biodiversity conservation and green development. He added that it is a must to integrate biodiversity conservation and green development into national strategies towards the goal of building China into an environment-friendly society, based on CBPF partnership framework.

Senior Program Officer (Environment) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Mr. Niu Zhiming presented to the participants the contributions in international & domestic investment that have been made by the ADB’s strategic framework, in the areas of green development and biodiversity conservation. He highlighted that management of natural resources and protection of biodiversity will produce long-term benefits, conducive to socio-economic development, quality of human life and fragility reduction of the natural environment, etc. Ensuring appropriate investment in natural capital holds the balance for achieving sustainable development and green growth.

Two signing ceremonies took place on the forum: “Agreement on China Biodiversity Partnership and Framework for Action (CBPF)”, jointly signed by 10 domestic Implementing Agencies and international Executing agencies within the framework of GEF supported CBPF Programme, i.e. FECO of MEP, Jiangsu Provincial Department of Environmental Protection, Sichuan Provincial Department of Environmental Protection, Xinyang Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) of Henan Province, Shaanxi Commission of Development and Reform, Gansu Provincial Department of Forestry, Qinghai Provincial Department of Forestry, UNDP, FAO and ADB. China Communications Construction Company Ltd, China Vanke Co., Ltd, HSBC Bank (China) Company Limited and Nature Home (China) Co., Ltd representing the four different types of businesses in China signed off to endorse the “Initiative on Business and Biodiversity”. Participating representatives also discussed and exchanged views on two topics “partnership and green development” and “enterprise participating and green development.”

The Forum is deemed to have accomplished three major results: firstly, it explicitly puts forward biodiversity-friendly green development model; secondly, it pushes forward the process of involving enterprises to participate in biodiversity conservation; thirdly, it sets course on a new journey to build biodiversity partnership. The Forum is an innovative attempt in China to put biodiversity conservation and green development into practice.

As many as around 200 representatives from the member departments of China National Committee of Biodiversity Conservation, (provincial) departments and (municipal) bureaus of environmental protection, Global Environment Facility (GEF), international Executing Agencies and domestic Implementing Agencies under the umbrella of China Biodiversity Partnership and Framework for Action (CBPF), business world, research and academia, media circle and civil society participated in the forum.