The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Biotope hosted a well-attended side event in the Blue Zone in Cali on October 24, 2024. The event was titled “Reconciling nature conservation and development: how to build an enabling environment and meet biodiversity targets”.
The panel included Stephanie Bouziges-Eschmann from the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial, Marie-Cecile Thirion from the Agence Francaise de Developpement, Ann Nakafeero from the Government of Uganda, Conrad Savy from The World Bank, Warrick Mostert from Anglo American and Sean Nazerali from the Conservation Trust Fund BIOFUND who shared valuable insights from their perspectives and experiences on the subject. Ray Victurine from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Renald Boulnois from Biotope moderated the session and panel.
The participants discussed the objectives and achievements of the Conservation Mitigation and Biodiversity Offsets (COMBO+) project being implemented across six countries in Africa and Asia (Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique and Uganda and Lao PDR, Myanmar, and funded by FFEM and AFD, with support from other donors. The panelists shared how COMBO is achieving real success on the ground, through implementation of binding legislation, inclusion of all stakeholders and capacity building. The project is contributing substantially to improved policy and practice on the mitigation hierarchy with the aim of achieving no net loss or net gain of biodiversity in line with national and global targets, a key mechanism to help reconcile necessary economic development and biodiversity conservation.
A big thank you to all panellists for contributing to our session, to the audience and to our COMBO+ partners and collaborators!