“Time has run out. There is no longer space to continue delaying the necessary decisions that the peoples demand from us”,, the People’s Power Minister for Foreign Relations, Jorge Arreaza, warned on Wednesday about the damage caused by the capitalist economic model in the ecosystems of the planet, during his speech presented at the Summit on Biological Diversity, which is held from the headquarters of the United Nations, in New York, United States.
The Foreign Minister ratified the commitment of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda agreed within the UN, “even despite the criminal blockade of the United States against our country.”
He explained that the COVID-19 pandemic evidences “what we have been saying for decades”, that the capitalist model is deeply inhuman, predatory, incompatible with biological diversity and life on the planet, and that its patterns of production, distribution and consumption are unsustainable.
Environmental achievements in revolution
Foreign Minister Arreaza affirmed that in Venezuela, as one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, his Government grants a rank and essential importance to the strengthening of the National System of Protected Areas, which increased from 33 to 43% of the national territory, with the declaration of the Caura National Park in March 2017, which with 7.5 million hectares of Humid Tropical Forest is the largest in the world.
Likewise, he detailed that 17.5% of the marine-coastal areas are under protection figures; there are five Protected Wetland Regions, according to the Ramsar Convention, and in the coming months 10 more will be proposed; the electric power matrix is made up of 80% hydroelectricity and the Tree Mission was relaunched for the reforestation of public spaces and production units.
Faced with this challenge for the preservation of life, Minister Arreaza urged to act together, coordinated, committed to life and peace, while trusting that the next global framework for biodiversity post-2020 to be adopted in 2021 is balanced, with objectives and targets that are in line with the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The World Summit on Biodiversity, convened by the UN in the framework of the 75th session of its General Assembly, seeks to achieve a renewed international commitment to this issue in the face of the accelerated loss of wildlife.