10th Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics™ Forum 2022 coming to Dhaka

Balipara Foundation has announced that the 10th Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics™ Forum 2022 will be held between 11 to 13 December.

This time the discourse is being brought to Dhaka, Bangladesh, in its first-ever international conclave since its inception, marking a momentous step in the process of securing the economic future of the Eastern Himalayas through climate and biodiversity action.

The forum will be hosted at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) in Dhaka.

The central theme being ‘Ecology is Economy’, the strategic focus areas of the conference 2022 towards building conversations include valuing natural assets - creating ecological budgets and nature capital debt for social mobility; rewilding the eastern himalayas - building resilient landscapes from snowmen to sea-line; transboundary ecological diplomacy - action for conservation; transparency - the role of technology for participatory natural asset management, wellbeing - building bridges between the race for development and conservation for human resilience; and democratising forest management - enhancing ownership of indigenous communities and gender inclusion.

Since its inception in 2013, the Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics^TM Forum of Balipara Foundation has been addressing conservation challenges through the proprietary developmental framework of Rural Futures and Naturenomics™, with the vision to put nature back into global economics, and the call to address the urgency to seize this opportunity to do so right now.

Our planet’s biodiversity is facing the sixth extinction event according to scientists, due to climate change, habitat loss and overexploitation. Since the 1970s, nearly 70 per cent of our wildlife populations have been lost. Within the next 20 years, 500 species are expected to go extinct, the same number of species lost over the entirety of the 19th century.

Eastern Himalayan countries are on the frontline of both the climate and biodiversity crises today. South Asian countries are expected to face the worst consequences of climate change, from rising temperatures to floods and droughts.

These changes are already having devastating consequences for the lives and livelihoods. In 2020 alone, 4.4 million people were displaced in Bangladesh because of climate change.

As a climate leader, Bangladesh has been one of the leading voices behind the drive to include financing for loss and damage in global financing agreements. It has also played a key role in drawing global attention to the urgent need for more adaptation funding.

These negotiations secured a commitment to increase adaptation funding to half of all climate funding by 2025, and an agreement to keep negotiations on compensations for loss and damage open for the future.

As the current chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, Bangladesh has been instrumental in creating the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan 2030 – to transition the country towards growth through climate resilience by the turn of the decade.

Bangladesh’s forward-looking approach and commitment to international coalition-building demonstrates its leadership potential, to transform the Eastern Himalayan region, particularly towards the management of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta and watersheds.

The Eastern Himalayan region unites some of the fastest growing global and developing economies today, with young and ambitious populations increasingly concerned about their ecological future, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, China and Myanmar.

Its shared challenges and opportunities and its shared ecosystems, stretched across rivers, mountains, and forests, highlight the need for the region to pool its interests, share resources and cooperate on the international stage to drive attention and support for adaptation and mitigation in the region, both upstream and downstream.

The Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics™ Forum has brought together multiple streams of experts over the years, enriching the science, business, and social practices behind the Balipara Foundation’s Rural Futures model for rewilding.

The Forum serves as a platform for connecting new partners, identifying new areas and needs for intervention, connecting communities and young leaders interested in driving change in their communities across borders.

Through the thematic ‘Ecology is Economy’, the Forum has become a platform for charting strategy and building action networks for rewilding degraded lands across the region including connecting interested investors and businesses to communities who can lead these rewilding programmes.

The Forum this year will see over 100 eminent personalities from multidisciplinary fields, from 22 plus countries such as United Kingdom, Bhutan, USA, Indonesia, Nigeria, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, Nepal, Taiwan, to name a few.

Renowned British-Indian economist Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor emeritus at Cambridge University, will open the forum with his speech focusing on his publication ‘The Economics of Biodiversity’, towards redirecting value to our natural assets with the mission to redesign and reshape economic models, enhancing security, sustainability, and resilience in global developmental paradigms.

The Forum will also celebrate and honor our Eastern Himalayan Heroes with the annual Balipara Foundation Awards 2022 recognising and honoring the extraordinary visionaries of the Eastern Himalayas and their indomitable contribution to live in harmony with nature and adopt innovative, sustainable methods towards a sustainable economy.

Launched in 2007, the Balipara Foundation takes a community-based approach to conservation through a proprietary concept Naturenomics^TM (Nature + Economics).

Building on the principle of ecology is economy; they are entering a new phase of re-defined growth, with a vision to create 100 million natural assets by 2030, having restored over 4,000 hectares of land with 5 million natural assets in the last 3 years.