Princess Basma calls for striking balance between development, local community needs

AMMAN — HRH Princess Basma Bint Talal on Wednesday stressed the importance of maintaining a balance between the development requirements, and the needs and lifestyle of the local communities surrounding Jordan’s nature reserves, and efforts to protect and maintain the sustainability of natural reserves. 

Speaking during the opening of the  “Dana+20: Mobile Indigenous Peoples, Conservation, Sustainable Development, and Climate Change” conference held at Dana Biosphere Reserve, Princess Basma said that moving towards urbanisation and development must go hand in hand with programmes to preserve local communities’ cultural traditions and long-established ways of life.

The princess commended the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature’s (RSCN) efforts in these regions of Jordan, notably Dana Biosphere Reserve, which contains rare biological diversity and provides habitats for numerous species of plants, birds, reptiles and mammals, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

She also highlighted the role of the Dana Standing Committee, since the Dana Declaration of 2002, which offered the nature reserve an opportunity to take part in international conventions and global conferences centred on the conservation of nature for social development and recognising the rights of local communities and their role in preserving the environment.

She highlighted the importance of adopting the environmentally friendly and sustainable principles of the Dana Declaration in all nature reserves.

Climate change, rising temperatures, water shortages, and increasing desertification threaten reserves and natural areas in Jordan and around the world, which requires the protection of natural habitats and ecosystems, as well as assisting local communities to adapt to these risks and participate in planning, the princess said. 

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Dana Declaration, the conference aims to review the previous declaration, and launch the Dana+20 workshop, which focuses on the interrelated priorities of environmental preservation and addressing the ecological effects of climate change and their impact on local communities.

The workshop is organised by the Refugee Studies Centre from the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), an international NGO, and the RSCN.