Launching tomorrow of new biodiversity action plan, website |27 July 2015

 The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change (MEECC) will be hosting an official ceremony to mark the endorsement of Seychelles’ second National Biodiversity Strategic and Action Plan (NBSAP) and to launch the newly developed Seychelles’ Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD).

The NBSAP 2 and CHM will be launched tomorrow afternoon by Minister Didier Dogley, and will be attended by UNDP representatives, along with environmental non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders.

The ceremony will take place at the Le Meridien Fisherman’s Cove Hotel.

Seychelles NBSAP is the principal instrument for implementing the CBD at the national level. The Convention required Seychelles to prepare an updated  national biodiversity strategy and to ensure that this strategy is mainstream into the planning and activities of all those sectors whose activities can have an impact (positive or negative) on biodiversity.

Seychelles submitted its first NBSAP back in 1998. The newly updated document has been prepared under the NBSAP project, implemented by the government of Seychelles, United Nations Development Programme and Global Environment Facility Programme Coordination Unit (GOS-UNDP-GEF PCU).  It was recently approved by the Cabinet of Ministers and it will be submitted to the CBD soon after the launching by the country’s CBD Focal Point, Denis Matatiken.

Part of the NBSAP project also included the development of the Seychelles CHM. The CHM is a worldwide network of government and partner organisations facilitating scientific and technical cooperation through information exchange. This website promotes the information and services available mainly in the context of biodiversity.

Each party to the CBD must at some point in time create its own national CHM, and as of this year the Seychelles has its own. The website comprises documents and reports, pictures of Seychelles biodiversity taken by conservationists and nature enthusiasts, but also other conventions which Seychelles is a party to. The website will be linked up to the global CHM as well as the CBD through the CBD Focal Point shortly after its launch.