A National Biological Diversity Coordination Board has been established under the chairmanship of the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.
With the signature of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a memorandum on the National Biological Diversity Coordination Board has been established in order to follow the developments in the global biodiversity agenda, to bring biodiversity into the economy in a sustainable way and to carry out the Convention Biological Diversity (CBD) and the term presidency effectively.
According to the memorandum, Turkey will be the term chairman of the CBD between the years 2022 and 2024, and host the Biological Diversity Conference that will be held in the last quarter of 2022.
The memorandum states that the Board will comprise of senior officials to make decisions on behalf of the Directorate of Strategy and Budget, Science, Technology and Innovation Policies Board of the Presidency, the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry, Environment and Urbanism, Foreign Affairs, Energy and Natural Resources, Interior Affairs, Culture and Tourism, National Education, Health, Industry and Technology, Trade, Transportation and Infrastructure, as well as the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, Foreign Economic Relations Board and the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (UCTEA) and the Chamber of Forest Engineers.
The board will gather at least once a year. The working procedures and principles of the Board will be determined while the secretariat services and coordination will be carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Sub-committees, technical committees, advisory and working groups will be formed in order to obtain and evaluate the detailed technical information needed in the works of the Board. In addition to relevant public institutions and organizations, representatives of universities, civil society, professional associations and private sector will be invited to board meetings. The sub-committees can take part in the committees, advisory groups and working groups.