Costa Rican president says biodiversity conservation promotes economy

KUNMING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Preserving biodiversity will not only ease climate crisis but become "a win for people and our economies," President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado Quesada said Tuesday.

"As we are facing the devastating consequences of COVID-19, we must think beyond the present and put nature in the center of our economies," he said in a video address to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

The meeting, known as COP15, kicked off Monday in Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Stressing that 55 percent of global gross domestic product depends on high-functioning biodiversity and ecosystem services, Alvarado said the economic benefits of protecting biodiversity outweigh the costs.

If we want a successful economy and future and creat jobs, "restoring and conserving our land and ocean is critical," he said.

The Kunming conference, he said, comes at an extremely important time as the whole world is facing a series of overlapping crises.

He called on countries and other stakeholders to take this opportunity to seek consensus on a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which is expected to guide joint actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.