Suriname has released its updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), setting out actions to ramp up funding for nature conservation and restoration, including exploring biodiversity offsetting.

Published by the Ministry of Spatial Planning and Environment, the plan positions Suriname as one of the few countries and regions that have submitted their strategies, due by the COP16 UN biodiversity summit that opens on Oct. 21.

NBSAPs are national documents outlining how countries intend to meet biodiversity conservation targets, and are supposed to be accompanied by separate Biodiversity Finance Plans that identify sources of funding.

“This NBSAP … represents a commitment of Suriname to implement policies and actions that are mainstreamed with national sustainable development priorities and aligned with the GBF,” Suriname’s plan said.

Part of the Amazon biome, Suriname is one of the most forested nations in the world, with approximately 93% of its surface covered with tropical rainforest.

While the country has a relatively low rate of deforestation, pressure has increased in recent years mainly due to land conversion and degradation in fisheries, urban housing development, agriculture, and forestry sectors.

FUNDING STRATEGIES

Suriname’s plan outlined four goals – biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of nature, fair access and equitable benefit sharing, and mainstreaming and enabling conditions – stressing the need to design innovative mechanisms to drive funding.

“The implications of Suriname’s current economic situation with limited government budgets allocated to biodiversity and the environment are far-reaching,” the document said.

“Therefore, the availability of funding has a high priority, placing an essential early focus on increasing knowledge on financing options and acquiring experience for making full use of the funds, facilities, and financing schemes.”

Among the targets listed were to explore biodiversity offsetting, which the plan said presents potential opportunities for the country, and promote synergies with climate financing.

“Increasing serious talks about carbon credits for climate financing present new opportunities for biodiversity when climate-biodiversity co-benefits can be identified,” the plan said.

As well, the updated strategy targets deepening Suriname’s payment for ecosystem services, developing partnerships between the public and private sectors, and establishing a national nature fund partly fed by revenues from extractive industries.

“Not just the environmental sector, but all sectors, in particular Suriname’s land and sea use sectors, must take responsibility for the conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable benefit sharing of biodiversity,” it added.

ADVANCING MONITORING

Funding mobilisation was identified as one of the high-priority targets, along with expanding terrestrial, marine, and wetland protected areas and enhancing biodiversity data collection and monitoring.

Notably, the plan intends to foster the development of biodiversity-related research projects in collaboration with Suriname’s scientific institutes in a bid to map the impacts on species and ecosystems on a national level and assess the new strategy’s outcomes.

In addition to the lack of funding, inadequate monitoring was one of the main factors contributing to the low level of implementation of the first NBSAP, developed in 2006, said the updated document.

“The main lessons learned from the first NBSAP are that the strategy was not well enough integrated in national planning and policies, and that there was no adequate monitoring system in place to track progress,” it said.

Monitoring shortfalls have largely hampered progress in achieving the pre-GBF Aichi targets after the CBD conference held in Japan in 2010.

Nearly half of national policy pledges for nature made in the NBSAPs before 2020 were not supported by evidence of actions taken by governments, according to a recent study by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

During the latest CBD negotiations, held in May in Nairobi, Kenya, countries edged closer to agreeing a global monitoring framework for tracking progress towards the GBF target, due to be finalised by the COP16 summit.

By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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