Stark warning as UN biodiversity conference opens in Germany

Yahoo News 19 May 08;

The Earth's natural resources must be shared more equally between rich and poor nations, Germany's environment minister said Monday at the start of a UN biodiversity conference.

Some 6,000 representatives from 191 countries are attending the 11-day conference on the UN's convention on biodiversity, which was first adopted at the Rio Earth summit in 1992.

"The industrialised countries must recognise the need to share natural resources with those with those who have safeguarded them," Sigmar Gabriel declared.

"It is a question of principle, a question of justice," he said. "The developing countries are right to speak of "biopiracy", when the industrialised world use their resources without authorisation and without paying a penny," he said.

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.

Gabriel said he expected "significant progress" on the issue. "We need a clear mandate for structuring the negotiations by 2010," he said.

The UN convention on biodiversity (CBD) was established at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, whilst the Bonn conference is the ninth meeting of its signatories.

"Sixteen years after the Rio Summit, life on earth is at a crucial crossroads", Gabriel told delegates.

"We're still on the wrong track, and if we continue like this, we can see that we will not meet our goals," he said.

Gabriel pointed to the fact that the current rate of extinction of species is between 100 and 1,000 times the natural rate of extinction.

One in four mammals, one bird in eight, one third of all amphibians and 70 percent of plants are under threat.

"The loss of diversity of life on earth will continue "as long as it is easier to make money from the destruction of nature than protect it," he said.

A new study, "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity", extracts of which were published on Monday by Der Spiegel magazine, suggests that each year the disappearance of animal and plant life costs six percent of annual global gross national product (GNP) -- two trillion euros (3.1 trillion dollars).

For poorer countries, the burden is particularly heavy, often because they receive none of the profits large multinationals make from developing new medicines and commercial products from the resources and knowledge of indigenous people.

Deforestation is also on the agenda: "Each year we lose the equivalent of the size of three Switzerlands in forests," Gabriel said.

Tropical forests are the most threatened, and also the home to 80 percent of the world's biodiversity, according to the CBD.

"Herculean task" to safeguard biodiversity: Germany
Madeline Chambers, Reuters 19 May 08;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - The world faces a Herculean task to safeguard animal and plant life from climate change and pollution, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the opening of a U.N. biodiversity conference on Monday.

U.N. experts say human activities including greenhouse gas emissions mean the planet is facing the most serious spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. One species disappears roughly every 20 minutes, they say.

"In my view, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda," Gabriel said in a speech opening the conference, held once every two years.

He vowed to do all he could to reach accord, saying countries had to answer inconvenient questions and take action rather than produce "huge amounts of paper with little content".

"It will be a Herculean task to get the world community and each individual country on the right path to sustainability," Gabriel said, noting that extinction rates were 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural rates.

Some 5,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries met in Bonn for a two-week Convention on Biological Diversity conference at which they aim to agree on ways to slow rising extinction rates.

A U.N. summit in 2002 set a goal of slowing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 but experts say that goal is far off.

"The truth today is that we are still on the wrong track. If we follow this path we can foresee that we will fail to meet the target," said Gabriel.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature published a report saying one in eight of the world's birds are at risk of extinction as climate change puts birds under increasing pressure, according to data compiled by BirdLife International.

POLITICAL TOPIC

Biodiversity has jumped up the political agenda due partly to a recent 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 agricultural crops will suffer if wild stocks die out. Without a change in human consumption habits, feeding 9 billion people would be impossible, they warn.

"The world is watching this conference and we cannot fail," the Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf told a news conference.

"Business as usual is no more an option if humanity is going to survive. Losing biodiversity is not just losing trees and species, it is an economic and security loss."

He and Gabriel pointed to a study which put the annual value of the world's protected areas at $5 trillion, in services such as food, timber or water purification, compared to $1.8 trillion in annual revenues for the automotive industry.

Gabriel told the delegates biodiversity affected the lives of the world's poorest people and if no action was taken, commercial fishing would have to end by 2050 -- a devastating scenario for millions of people who rely on fish protein.

Gabriel said a priority of the conference, which ends on May 30, was to agree on the framework for a 2010 deal on binding rules on access to genetic resources and sharing their benefits.

Developing countries want to ensure they get a share of the financial rewards from their natural resources which pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms are keen to tap.

"This summit is a unprecedented opportunity for governments to stop talking and start acting," said Greenpeace International campaigner, Martin Kaiser. (Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)