To update the Global Taxonomy Initiative Regional Action Plan (GTI RAP) 2010-2015, the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), with support from the Japan-Asean Integration Fund (JAIF), held a planning workshop on the GTI RAP for Southeast Asia 2017-2025 last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The GTI was developed by various governments through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to remove or reduce knowledge gaps on taxonomy, decline in taxonomic expertise and the negative impacts of these taxonomic impediments in the ability of humans to conserve and protect biological resources.
“Human activities, including unsustainable production, increased development and infrastructure, pollution among factors that threaten the increasingly fragile biological resources in Southeast Asia,” ACB Executive Director Roberto V. Oliva said.
“The first step in biodiversity conservation is knowing what to conserve. This is why taxonomy is very important. The insufficient scientific information on biodiversity in the region is a crucial issue in the assessment and prediction of biodiversity changes, caused mainly by the lack of taxonomic capacity in data collection and analysis,” he added.
Through the three-day workshop, the Center aimed to provide the Asean member-states (AMS) with an assessment of the first phase of the GTI RAP 2010-2015; provide the AMS with a background on events leading to the development of the first phase GTI RAP for better understanding of the current updating activity;
Provide a platform for discussion wherein taxonomy and related experts can share their experiences and life work with other regional experts; and chart the course of the GTI in Asean for the next eight years in accordance with the Asean Vision 2025, the CBD GTI Program of Work and CBD Capacity Building Framework of the GTI.
“With the Asean Vision 2025, alignment of activities under the environment sector has been ongoing since 2016 and it was deemed necessary for the GTI in Asean to follow suit since the GTI RAP 2010-2015 has become obsolete,” said Clarissa C. Arida, director of the ACB Programme Development and Implementation unit.
It is in this context that the project, titled Development of the GTI RAP for South East Asia 2016-2020 and Capacity Development on the Taxonomy for High Elevation Vascular Plants, was conceptualized and proposed by ACB and was approved by the Japan-Asean Integration Fund in November 2016. One of the project activities is this workshop, Arida added. In 2009 the first Asean Plus-3 meeting workshop on the GTI for Southeast Asia was conducted in response to the call of the CBD for greater attention to the GTI.
The output of this workshop was a GTI RAP for Southeast Asia 2010-2015. The RAP was implemented by ACB in support of the AMS, and a series of training courses and internships were conducted on taxonomy with funding support from Japan for the period 2010-2015.
The ACB is an intergovernmental organization that facilitates cooperation and coordination among the AMS and with relevant national governments, regional and international organizations on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, guided by fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of such natural resources.