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The Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board (APSBB) has planned extended OECMs (Other Effective Area - based Conservation Measures) for assorted taxon of flora and fauna extracurricular the reserve forests, nationalist parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
“A Protected Area is explicitly dedicated to quality conservation whereas an OECM is governed and managed for different superior goals specified arsenic assemblage use, concern greenbelts oregon h2o absorption but it de facto delivers effective, long-term, successful situ biodiversity conservation arsenic a byproduct,” APSBB Chairman Neelayapalem Vijay Kumar told The Hindu.
He observed that OECMs are captious tools for achieving the planetary “30x30” people formalised nether the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to support astatine slightest 30% of the earth’s onshore and oceans by the twelvemonth 2030 successful bid to halt biodiversity nonaccomplishment and assistance stabilise the climate.
Mr. Kumar noted that Andhra Pradesh has a divers ecological scenery spanning the Eastern Ghats, the Krishna and Godavari stream basins, immense coastal wetlands and accepted ineffable groves. Keeping successful presumption the likelihood of declaration of ceremonial Protected Areas triggering socio-economic conflicts, the APSBB chose OECMs arsenic a flexible and inclusive alternative.
The OECMs planned see harnessing concern greenbelts, development of micro-forests successful cities specified arsenic Vijayawada, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Kurnool and Rajahmundry, and protecting marine breeding grounds successful accepted sportfishing zones and estuarine areas successful concern with agencies specified arsenic the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute.
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Mr. Vijay Kumar said, “The OECMs assistance successful bridging fragmented ecosystems, particularly the wildlife corridors successful the Eastern Ghats done which aggregate highways walk and wherever agriculture is wide prevalent, and successful boosting conservation footprint by facilitating accelerated scaling up of the legally recognised conservation measures thereby gathering nationalist targets without displacing villages and acquiring lands.”
Besides, the OECMs seamlessly align with Access and Benefit Sharing mechanisms, wherein the section communities protecting bio-resources tin legally commercialized oregon utilise them sustainably, turning conservation into an economical incentive.
To bash amended municipality readying from the biology perspective, APSBB has already initiated the mentation of City Biodiversity Indices for Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Kadapa connected the lines of the globally acclaimed Singapore Index. The baseline indexing has been completed successful those cities and steps were taken to standard this model crossed further municipality and semi-urban clusters. The baseline assessments of cities supply the nonstop geographic and biology blueprints needed to observe and standard up localised OECMs.
APSBB’s absorption is connected conservation efforts successful the riverine ecosystem of Vijayawada, marine-coastal biodiversity of Visakhapatnam that features beaches, estuaries, mangroves and concern buffer zones, firm concern sanctuaries (greenbelts) successful Kakinada and Visakhapatnam and Tirupati’s foothill ecosystems and ineffable landscapes.
