YEREVAN, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- The China Pavilion at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17) opened in the capital of Armenia.
Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu, Armenian Environment Minister and COP17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan, and Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, attended the opening ceremony on Monday. The pavilion was officially opened by Huang at the ceremony hosted by China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
Huang said global biodiversity conservation had made overall progress since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) in 2022, but implementation remained below expectations.
As COP17 conducts the first global review of collective progress in implementing the framework, Huang called on all parties to translate their commitments into concrete policies and conservation actions with greater determination and stronger efforts.
Matevosyan said the current pace and scale of global efforts to implement the KMGBF were insufficient to achieve its targets. He called for stronger domestic coordination and international cooperation, improved mechanisms for assessing and reporting implementation progress, and greater integration of biodiversity conservation across government departments and all sectors of society.
Schomaker said the progress reflected in China's seventh national report on the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity was encouraging. She particularly commended China's ecological conservation redline system as an example of integrating biodiversity conservation into national planning and development.
Themed "Taking Action for Nature," COP17 runs on Oct. 19-30. During the conference, the China Pavilion will host a series of events, including thematic side events, sessions on local biodiversity conservation initiatives, seminars and an exhibition showcasing China's achievements in biodiversity conservation. ■
