Interview: China good partner to LatAm in protecting biodiversity, says Mexican official

China is a good partner to Mexico and Latin America in general in protecting biodiversity, a Mexican environment official said in an interview with Xinhua on Friday.

Hesiquio Benitez Diaz, director general of International Cooperation and Implementation at the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity under the Mexican Environment Ministry, believes that as a leading global economic player, China is also taking on a leading environmental role.

"In the area of biodiversity, I believe (China) is a good partner, and it is great news that it is willing to collaborate with Latin America," said Diaz.

China is one of the world's 17 "megadiverse countries," identified by the American nonprofit environmental organization Conservation International as home to most of Earth's species and extremely rich in endemic species.

In 2002, these countries decided to create the so-called Group of Like-Minded Megadiverse Countries to boost cooperation in protecting wildlife.

This year, on the sidelines of the upcoming 13th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in Cancun, Mexico in December, the group is expected to nominate an Asian country to take its rotating presidency.

"It would be great news if China were to become the new leader of the Megadiverse," said Diaz.

"It is going to be very enriching for (China) to share its experiences" in environmental conservation, he said, adding that "it is a very big country and I think we can learn many things from them."

"There has been very good collaboration" between Mexico and China in this field, he said.

In December, at the United Nations (UN) biodiversity conference, "the world will meet to take the steps needed to build a future of life in harmony with nature," according to the UN.

One basic goal, said Diaz, is to restore at least 15 percent of the world's deteriorated ecosystems by 2020. Endi