APA-Cape Town (South Africa) South Africa’s biodiversity, valued at US$18.1 billion, was a national and cultural asset, and a source of economic prosperity through the sustainable use of a wide variety of plants and wildlife in the country, a cabinet minister said Tuesday.
Addressing the 5th Global Conference on Biodiversity Finance in Cape Town, Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said to preserve and conserve such natural assets there was a need to reform the global financial system and that of multilateral development banks to fund developing countries’ biodiversity and climate change initiatives.
“Mechanisms such as debt for biodiversity swaps, payment for ecosystem services, as well as greater availability of grant financing and concessional loans must be considered in the context of achieving sustainable financing mechanisms for developing countries,” Creecy said.
She added: “Neither our biodiversity nor our climate change objectives can be achieved by Global Environmental Facility (GEF) funding or by further loans to developing countries, the majority of whom are already heavily indebted.”
According to a 2017 research, some of the many ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems in South Africa were valued at US$18.1 billion, the minister said.
“This conservative valuation is equivalent to 7% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP),” she said.
Biodiversity was also the basis for substantial employment in economic activities that depended on biodiversity for their core business – including industries such as the wildlife economy, ecotourism, natural resource management, bio-trade and research, Creecy said.
In 2014, biodiversity-related employment was estimated at nearly 400,000 jobs, she noted.
NM/jn/APA