South Africa wants to develop national biodiversity goals similar in scale to those it’s pursuing to transition its economy to the use of climate-friendly energy, its environment minister said.
"If you think about the climate space 10 years ago, it’s a bit like that space. There were good ideas, there was a vision, there were lots of little projects," Barbara Creecy, said in an interview at a conference to launch the strategy east of Johannesburg."If you look at the climate space now, we are talking about very serious whole of society, whole of economy approaches, which we are realising.
The new strategy will aim to capitalise on South Africa’s abundant wildlife, unique ecosystems and experience with conservation models that see wild areas harvested in a sustainable manner. It will also seek to create jobs and income earning opportunities in some of the poorer areas of a country already struggling with one of the world’s highest unemployment rates.
Boosting the income from pharmaceutical products and food supplements more than sixfold to R11.6 billion.