The National Directorate of Environment (DINAB) in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) under the SBAPP project, held on 18 and 19 May 2023 in Maputo province, a seminar to share and internalize the decisions of the 15th Conference of the Parties (CoP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), held in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada.
Mozambique was represented at COP 15 by a multi-sectorial delegation consisting of Government Institutions, Civil Society and NGOs. At this conference, some decisions were adopted that should be internalized taking into account the reality of the country, implying for example updating the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP 2015-2035) so that it reflects the new commitments, goals and targets adopted through the new Global Biodiversity Framework post-2020 (Kunming - Montreal) and the other CoP Decisions.
For this reason DINAB, in collaboration with its partners, organized this seminar inviting the different sectors (environment, agriculture, forests, land, tourism, conservation, climate change, science and technology, sea and fisheries, mineral resources and energy, economy and finance, academia and civil society) to share and socialize the main results of CoP15, and discuss its implementation, starting by updating the NBSAP (2015-2035), ensuring its alignment with the goals and priorities of each of the sectors, taking into account the sectoral policies, strategies and plans.
The seminar was led by the National Director of Environment and was attended by 35. The meeting also served to present the current status and required actions for other conventions ratified by Mozambique related to biodiversity, such as the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar) and the Convention on Combating Drought and Desertification (UNCCD).
It is worth noting that this seminar is part of the program that WCS has been implementing since 2020, under the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Land and Environment (MTA), related to capacity building, preparatory meetings and development of technical tools aimed at assisting the country in negotiating and implementing the decisions of the CBD CoPs.