POSITION PAPER

Country : Democratic Republic of the Congo

Committee : World Health Organization (WHO)
Name : Faiz Amer Abdat
Topic Area : Biodiversity and threat to medicine
Biodiversity plays vital roles in maintaining human and animal health. More than 60% of
the world population relies almost entirely on the plant medicine for primary health care, thus it
create an inter-relationships between human and biodiversity. These relationships have been and
are vital for the survival of humanity in term of health. The world now face a fear upon the threat
on the decreasing amount of biodiversity and other living things somewhere on the earth that
might be useful for humans health are yet to be discovered. There were numerous pressures
affecting the existence of biodiversity. For instances, deforestation in particular area getting
exacerbated pushed by demand on woods energy, the establishment of industry and mining
quarries that lead to the destruction of eco-system. Another cause for this phenomenon including
climate change, illegal poaching, and mismanagement of protected areas that still hard to be
solved by some government around the world.
The delegation of Democratic Republic of the Congo believes that the growth of the
human population is a major factor affecting the environment. The use of biodiversity is strongly
influence by the increase number of worlds population. The consumption of biodiversity for
humans health interest is something inevitable. However, the increase of biodiversity extraction
are not followed by a good management to sustain it existence, it has been overshadowed by
economic motive to gain profit as much as possible and cover the market demand on natural
resources.
Considering the long term interest on biodiversity, the world should aware and recognize
the rights of next generation to enjoy and get benefit from utilizing biodiversity for their sake and
a better health future that people can own with. Therefore, Democratic Republic of the Congo
support the United Nation Development Programme action to address the global issues by
developing new Biodiversity and Ecosystems Global Framework for the period 2012-2020,
positioning the organization to respond to future challenges which include implementing the
global Aichi Biodiversity Targets set out in the CBD Strategic Plan (under the strategic goal D
target 14) and advancing the sustainable development agenda that emerged from the Rio+20
Summit.
DR Congo is one the worlds 10 mega-biodiverse countries, wide ecosystem we had has
growing international concern to participate in preserving biodiversity. However, severe
demographic and economic pressures, and the unsustainable use of resources, have impacted
negatively on the environment, particularly with regard to forest resources. DR Congo has not
yet established a system to review and monitor biodiversity or a set of indicators for CBD
purpose. Moreover, taxonomic inventories have not been maintained for more than 70 years. As
such, it is difficult to compile an accurate picture of biodiversity and project trends. DR Congo
has develop a training program for farmers farmers in agroforestry and afforestation techniques
that restore soil fertility and boost agricultural production in the Bateke Plateau region of western
DRC, it called Mbankana Centre for Integrated Development (CADIM). The groups
afforestation efforts have reduced exploitative pressure on the regions natural forests, and
enabled the reappearance of endemic animal species.
The delegation of Democratic Republic of the Congo believe that to further emphasizing
the run of CBD, and extent the responsibility of each nation, a local government should add
Population Health Environtment (PHE) approach, work to create healthier communities and
ecosystems. By promote family planning services to help slow population growth that can put
pressure on natural resources. Government of each nation should simultaneously improve access
to health services while helping communities manage their natural resources in ways that
improve their health and livelihood even as they protect the environment. The PHE approach
also targets synergies between human health and ecosystem health by including a wide spectrum
of development and conservation targets such as the sustainable management of natural
resources, improving livelihoods, food security and nutrition, and by maintaining or restoring
habitats and ecosystem functions. By focusing on the synergy between communities and their
environment, the PHE approach conserves biodiversity while at the same time improving
environmental health conditions for the local people. PHE is effective at achieving a wide range
of positive results over multiple sectors.
To support the run of PHE, delegation also belive that using The InVEST Biodiversity
model, using habitat quality and rarity as proxies to represent the biodiversity of a landscape,
estimating the extent of habitat and vegetation types across a landscape, and their state of
degradation. The model combines maps of land use land cover (LULC) with data on threats to
habitats and habitat response. Modeling habitat quality alongside environmental services enables
users to compare spatial patterns and identify areas where conservation will most benefit natural
systems and protect threatened species. On the other hand, it would provide a better approach in
assessing the availability of biodiversity while understand the growth population trend.