UN rings alarm bells over biodiversity loss

2544, 19/05/08

The world's species are disappearing at unprecedented rates, top UN biodiversity official Ahmed Djoghlaf told governments on Monday at the opening of a two-week meeting on the issue in Bonn, Germany.

Mr Djoghlaf called for "exceptional efforts" by governments to achieve an internationally-agreed goal to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 (EED 22/05/06 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/21021).  The prospects of meeting this goal are "truly daunting" and "half measures and business-as-usual are no longer options", the official said.

Representatives from more than 190 countries are meeting for the ninth biennial meeting of the 1992 UN convention on biological diversity, less than two years before the 2010 deadline.

A WWF report released ahead of the meeting shows biodiversity has declined by more than a quarter in the last 35 years.  The report shows governments are not on track to meet their biodiversity goal.

Discussions at the UN meeting are expected to focus on the global food crisis and the links between biological diversity and agricultural output.  Other topics to be discussed by governments include biodiversity and climate change and deforestation.

EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas and European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will attend the high-level segment of the meeting from 28 to 30 May.  Mr Dimas and the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, will present an EU study on ecosystem economics.

Meanwhile, governments have agreed to work towards legally binding safety rules for trade in genetically modified agricultural products following a meeting of the UN's Cartagena bio-safety protocol in Germany last week.  The rules will be discussed at the next meeting, in 2010.

Governments also met last week for the latest session of the UN's commission on sustainable development.  Current food shortages dominated a large part of the discussions.  Participants stressed the need to develop new technologies that will increase crop yields while protecting the environment.

Follow-up: Unep http://www.unep.org/, tel: +254 2 621 234, plus a press release

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=535&ArticleID=5805&l=en,

Mr Djoghlaf's opening speech http://www.cbd.int/doc/speech/2008/sp-2008-05-19-cop-es-en.pdf and conference page http://www.cbd.int/.  See also WWF biodiversity report http://www.wwf.org.uk/news/n_0000005089.asp and UN press

releases on bio-safety http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26701&Cr=Biological&Cr1=Diversity

and sustainable development commission http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/documents/press_release160508.pdf,

plus European commission note http://europa.eu/rapid/middayExpressAction.do?date=19/05/2008 (point 7).

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