KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 — The government has agreed to launch a programme to rehabilitate degraded areas throughout Malaysia by replanting 100 million trees starting this year until 2025 in an effort to preserve the country’s biodiversity and eco-system services.
Minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources Datuk Dr Xavier Jayakumar, in a statement, said the ministry lauded the strong participations and support of the business and private sectors to make the programme, which would be launched on March 21, a success.
Dr Xavier delivered this in his keynote address at the inaugural Biodiversity Forum for Business and Private Sector at Hotel Istana, here, yesterday.
The statement, which was e-mailed to Bernama today, mentioned that the forum, which was organised by DHI Water & Management (M) Sdn Bhd (DHI), is in line with the goals of the National Policy on Biological Diversity 2016-2025 (DKBK).
The goals of DKBK are to encourage the involvements of more business communities in the country to support the effort of the government to conserve biodiversity, promote its sustainable use and ensure a fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
The forum, attended by 140 participants, including businessmen, corporate bodies, academics, non-governmental organisations (NGO) and government agencies, discussed the roles and responsibilities that the business and private sectors can play in conserving biodiversity, the statement said.
In addition, the forum also discussed the eco-system services at the national and international levels, main-streaming biodiversity in various sectors and provide input for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
The forum, among others, also discussed the need of the private and business sectors to set up the Malaysian Platform for Business and Biodiversity to support The Global Partnership for Business and Biodiversity (GPBB) initiative under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
GPBB is a global network which encouraged co-operation and information sharing towards mainstreaming biodiversity in the business and private sectors.
Xavier, in his statement, also hoped that the input obtained from the forum would be tabled at the 3rd ASEAN Conference on Biodiversity (ACB2020) which would be held in Kuala Lumpur on March 16-20. — Bernama
