Kathmandu, September 12:

Alternative approaches to natural resource conservation should be identified to save biodiversity of Asia, experts said at the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Asia Regional Conservation Forum (RCF) today.

The experts highlighted the need to prioritise biodiversity conservation, examine broadly the challenges and opportunities on protected areas, wetlands, and coastal ecosystem management.

Julia Marton-Lèfevre, director-general of the IUCN, launched the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Red List reveals the ongoing decline in the numbers of flora and fauna globally. In Nepal, out of a total of 1,253 vertebrate species, 78 species have been identified as globally threatened.

The Red List is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of global conservation status of plant and animal species. It uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies and is relevant to all species and all regions of the world. Sustainable development, ecosystem management approaches to conservation and enabling legislative frameworks figured in today’s session of the RCF.

Stressing the need to strengthen partnerships for biodiversity conservation, Dr Krishna Chandra Paudel, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, said Nepal has embraced an integrated, holistic and participatory strategy to sustainable biodiversity conservation through pro-people and multi-sectoral approaches.

“Landscape conservation brings people together to identify, negotiate and put in place practices that optimise the environmental, social and economic benefits of biodiversity within a broader pattern of land uses,” said IUCN’s senior coordinator Dr Sue Mainka.

As many as 400 IUCN members and experts from over 30 Asian countries are participating in the RCF, which is being organised under the aegis of the Nepal government and the IUCN.