The media center of the15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity held the first news briefing on Oct. 10 and set an agenda of the conference.

The meeting is set to be held in two parts. The first part, scheduled for October 11 to 15, is held both offline and online. There will be high-level meetings, the ecological civilization forum and other activities during the conference.

According to introduction, the Chinese government attaches great importance to biodiversity conservation and prepared actively for COP15. As the host of the conference, China has made great efforts in biodiversity conservation, including setting a red line for ecological conservation, upgrading relevant laws and regulations, improving ecological environmental quality, establishing a system of protected areas with national parks, banning fishing on the Yangtze River for ten years, tightening law enforcement and supervision, fulfilling the international conventions and obligations earnestly. Nowadays, people's awareness and  participation in biodiversity conservation has continuously increased, the decline of biodiversity has been basically controlled, the stability of ecosystem has been significantly improved. Some kinds of rare and endangered species have gradually recovered in recent years. The population of Siberian Tigers, snow leopard, Tibetan antelope, Asian elephant and Crested ibis has increased significantly, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now lists giant panda as a “vulnerable” instead of “endangered” species.

The secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity pointed out that we are facing with unprecedented challenges in biodiversity conservation. Despite being in a grim situation, it should also be noted that as long as the protection action is taken, there has been a marked improvement.       

By Oct. 9, there has been a total of 169 media and 853 journalists from all over the world registered to report COP15. The conference will do its best to provide services for media and journalists from all over the world and make a full success of COP15 with joint efforts.

Over 1,800 participants will gather at a forum on ecological civilization as a sideline event of the meeting from October 14 to 15, which will cover a range of topics including coping with climate change and nature-based ecological protection and restoration. 

The second part of the meeting, to be held offline in the first half of 2022, is expected to see the finalization and adoption of an ambitious and practical post-2020 global biodiversity framework. 

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(Editors:Lexi, Rachel)