Yahoo News 28 May 08;
Germany on Wednesday pledged half a billion euros (785 million dollars) to help defend threatened forests and called on others to join its effort as a UN conference on biodiversity engaged top gear.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country wanted to set down a "very clear marker" on attaining the UN's Millennium goal of braking biodiversity loss by 2010.
"The Federal government, between 2009 and 2012, will earmark an additional amount of 500 million euros," Merkel told the meeting.
"We want to use this money in those areas where forests and other ecosystems are under threat and to find quick solutions for conserving them."
From 2013, Germany will stump up half a billion dollars, annually, she promised, but added, "obviously, Germany cannot shoulder this enormous global burden alone."
The three-day "high-level" section of the conference is gathering 87 ministers, with the goal of crafting a new global deal on preserving Earth's wildlife.
"Noting less that the basis of our own survival, our very existence, is at stake," Merkel told the 6,000 representatives from 191 countries attending the meeting, launched 11 days earlier.
Participants at the conference are hoping to establish a roadmap towards negotiating, by 2010, an "Access and Benefit Sharing" regulatory framework governing access to genetic resources and sharing the benefits from their use.
Amid sharp debate on the issue, Merkel called for "striking fair balance between rich and poor countries" in the economic exploitation of biodiversity.
The UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) was established at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso underlined the links between species loss and climate change, and said the world must see protecting biodiversity as an economic imperative.
"Biodiversity underpins our economies ... and we cannot afford to deplete our public capital in this way," he said.
Barroso singled out deforestation as one of the main causes of species loss, and said the European Union was reviewing measures to combat illegal logging, and trade in illegally harvested forest products.
But environment groups have criticised the EU for sitting on a draft law that would ban the importation of such products into Europe.
"The law is finished and ready to go, but because of commercial and business lobbying, the Commission has not gone forward," said Saskia Richartz, policy director for biodiversity at Greenpeace.
Scientists say that species are becoming extinct at a dizzying rate -- between 100 and 1,000 times the natural pace of extinction.
One in four mammals, one bird in eight, one third of all amphibians and 70 percent of plants are under threat.
Development economist Pavan Sukhdev has handed the conference a preliminary report in which the lost of the benefits of biodiversity are put at 3.1 trillion dollars a year, or six percent of the planet's gross national product (GNP).
Group of Eight (G8) environment ministers met in Kobe, Japan, earlier this week, issuing a joint statement acknowledging the fundamental importance of biodiversity and spelling out their support for the Millennium Development Goal of reaching a "significant reduction" in species loss by the end of this decade.
Greenpeace's Martin Kaiser praised Merkel for sending "a very strong and important signal" for reaching a strong agreement in Bonn.
He called on other industrialised countries to pitch in, and estimated around 30 billion euros (47.1 billion dollars) a year were needed to finance the protection of ancient forests.
Germany pledges millions to save forests
Madeline Chambers, Reuters 28 may 08;
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Germany has pledged 500 million euros ($786.2 million) by 2012 to help protect the world's forests, a move activists said could give impetus to U.N. talks on preserving the earth's biodiversity.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who won praise from environmentalists last year for her part in pushing through EU and G8 deals to fight climate change, made the commitment at a U.N. conference as it entered its decisive phase.
"We need a turning point on the issue of biodiversity," Merkel told delegates from 191 states participating in the 12-day conference which ends on Friday.
U.N. studies say the planet is facing the most serious spate of extinctions since dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, and experts meeting in Bonn are trying to agree on ways to slow down the rate at which plants and animals are dying out.
Human activity, including greenhouse gas emissions, are largely to blame, say the experts, who also warn of the economic costs of the loss of biodiversity.
Politicians have started to take biodiversity more seriously because of a surge in food prices which has been linked to booming demand in fast-growing economies, including China, and the growing use of crops to provide fuel.
Experts say crops will suffer if wild stocks die out.
"We're ready to take responsibility," said Merkel. "We're ready to do everything we can to safeguard the riches of our earth and the foundation of life for mankind," she said, adding some 150 animal and plant varieties die out every day.
She told delegates Europe's biggest economy would spend an additional 500 million euros on a network of protected forest areas until 2012. After that, Germany would boost spending to 500 million euros per year from an annual 200 million now.
About 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases come from the destruction of forests, say experts, and paying farmers in developing countries to keep them is seen by some as a way of slowing down climate change.
BREAK DEADLOCK
Environmental groups welcomed Merkel's announcement, saying it sent a strong signal to other countries and may help break the deadlock in the talks.
"After years of talk with little action, this new commitment will put the air back in the lungs of conservation funding," said Olaf Tschimpke, president of the Nature Conservancy and Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU).
The conference is working on a range of possible measures, including new rules on access to genetic resources and sharing their benefits, boosting the area of land and sea in protected areas and finding ways to combat invasive species.
A U.N. summit in 2002 set a goal of slowing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 but most experts say that target is out of reach.
"The time for action is now," EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told delegates.
"Extinction is forever. We cannot wait until the degradation of ecosystems reaches a point of no return."
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)
