Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand delivered Thailand’s statement at the Leaders Dialogue I, United Nations Summit on Biodiversity, highlighting the importance of the decline and loss of biodiversity in all areas, emphasising the Member States’ commitment to multilateralism and global unity in order to respond to the world’s challenges together, sharing Thailand’s practices on the changing domestic environmental situation and also reiterating the cooperation between all stakeholders to conserve biodiversity for the future generations.

On 30 September 2020, H.E. General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, delivered Thailand’s statement, via pre-recorded video, at the Leaders Dialogue I of United Nations Summit on Biodiversity under the theme “Addressing biodiversity loss and mainstreaming biodiversity for sustainable development” during the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA75), in New York, the United States of America.

While Thailand is one of the most highly biodiverse countries in the world, the Prime Minister recognises that human activities such as land encroachment and the overexploitation of natural resources mainly for economic purposes have led to biodiversity loss at an alarming rate. Thailand therefore has prepared itself as follows: (1) Thailand has implemented the policies to conserve, protect, restore, arrange for the sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as integrate biodiversity issues into the Constitution. The National Biodiversity Strategic and Action Plan has been developed to achieve the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sustainable Development Goals. (2) Thailand emphasises the importance of all stakeholders,including the private sector and civil society, as a key to success, and promotes a whole-of-government approach at all levels to overcome the biodiversity loss and encourage sustainable use. Also, Thailand is in the process of drafting the National Biodiversity Act that allows the public hearing by all stakeholders on biodiversity issue (3) Thailand has drawn lessons learnt from the COVID-19 situation that when human practices nature-distancing, nature and the ecosystem can recover themselves. So, Thailand is currently preparing to launch an annual plan to temporarily close all national parks each year to promote the recovery of natural forest and wildlife species. The plan includes the management of activities and limiting number of tourists.

Moreover, Thailand will be launching the Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Economy model which is expected to distribute fair and equitable income, reduce inequalities in access to natural resources, and encourage people to live with a better livelihood and in harmony with nature.

Finally, the Prime Minister has called upon all countries to work together to conserve the world’s biodiversity and the environment through multilateral processes. Thailand hopes that the negotiations of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework can be successfully concluded in 2021. This would set global framework for all the countries in working towards biodiversity protection for the present and future generations.

>>> Read the Statement by the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand at the Leaders Dialogue I, United Nations Summit on Biodiversity here