A view of the UN Biodiversity Summit on September 30 (New York time). — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Trần Hồng Hà, on behalf of the Vietnamese Government, has called on countries to combine strength and coordinate actions in a more urgent, drastic and practical manner to protect biodiversity – a priceless natural resource.

Hà made the appeal at the online UN Biodiversity Summit, themed “Urgent Action on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development”, on Thursday (Hanoi time), which was held as part of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly.

The event aimed to affirm the commitment to improving the human-nature relationship, work out orientations for addressing causes of biodiversity loss, and underscore the importance of biodiversity conservation in sustainable development activities and climate change response. It also looked to raise ambitions for the development of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to be adopted at the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2021.

Speaking at the summit’s plenary session, Hà said biodiversity is facing serious threats posed by human actions, especially increasing wildlife trafficking, shrinking natural forests due to fire and logging, and global warming triggered by climate change.

Such activities, with socio-economic development purposes, have severely affected biodiversity on both the mainland and oceans on the global scale, he pointed out.

The minister stressed that it’s time for all, from leaders to civilians, besides using political and legal tools, to consider biodiversity conservation a moral issue.

Urging joint actions to protect biodiversity, the official also suggested several actions such as building a green economy based on investing in natural capital instead of the current economy that mainly relies on the over-exploitation of natural resources, integrating biodiversity-related issues into development projects, viewing biodiversity as a crucial part of economic and climate change response solutions and as the measurement of sustainable development efforts, carrying out effective solutions to urgently prevent marine plastic pollution, encouraging the formation of and actively implementing regional and global initiatives to deal with environmental changes, and setting up a harmonious relationship between humans and nature. — VNS