GANGWON-DO < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(PYEONGCHANG=Yonhap News)A United Nations convention on biodiversity, which brought together government officials, environmentalists and entrepreneurs from around the world, wrapped up its 19-day run on Friday by adopting the "Pyeongchang Roadmap."

The 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, dubbed COP 12, kicked off with a ceremony on Sept. 29, with about 25,000 representatives from 194 countries gathering at the alpine city of Pyeongchang.

Organizers said the roadmap, named after the eastern city 182 kilometers from Seoul, is expected to help countries map a step-by-step action plan to fulfill their biodiversity goals.

While a heated debate took place among member countries in setting the financial goals of the roadmap, participants agreed to double their financial support for developing countries in 2015 and renegotiate the details in future meetings.

Another key result of the U.S. biodiversity conference is the "Gangwon Declaration" adopted on Wednesday.

Following a two-day high-level meeting, participants agreed in adopting the declaration that summarizes conservation initiatives and global development suggestions.

The declaration urged the United Nations to make biodiversity a major issue in future discussions for setting sustainable development goals and the Post-2015 Development Agenda, a process led by the U.N. that aims to help define the future global development framework that will succeed the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight global development targets, which come to an end in 2015.

Officials say the Gangwon Declaration is meaningful as it marks the fourth declaration that has been adopted during the meeting on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) so far.

During the high-level meeting, participants also pledged efforts to increase the world's awareness of the Nagoya Protocol that came into force on Sunday. The protocol is about access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization to the CBD.

The CBD, informally known as the Biodiversity Convention, was adopted at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNECD) held in Brazil in 1992 to address environmental problems facing the planet.

The multilateral treaty handling all aspects of biological diversity, including genetic resources, species and ecosystems, is one of the three U.N. conventions aimed at protecting the environment along with the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention to Combat Desertification.

Copyrights Yonhap News. All Rights Reserved.