UN meeting aims to set species-saving goals

Malcolm Foster, Associated Press 17 Oct 10;

TOKYO – An international conference aimed at preserving the planet's diversity of plants and animals in the face of pollution and habitat loss begins Monday in Japan, facing some of the same divisions between rich and poor nations that have stalled U.N. climate talks.

Seventeen years after the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity was enacted, it has yet to achieve any major initiative to slow the alarming rate of species extinction and loss of ecosystems despite global goals set in 2002 to make major improvement by this year.

Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of disappearing, coral reefs are the species deteriorating most rapidly and nearly a quarter of all plant species are threatened, according to the convention, which is convening the two-week meeting.

A key task facing delegates will be to hammer out a set of 20 strategic goals for the next decade.

Unless steps are taken to reverse the loss of Earth's biodiversity, scientists warn that the rate of extinction will climb and natural habitats will be degraded or destroyed — contributing to climate change and threatening agricultural production, fish stocks in the oceans and access to clean water.

Scientists estimate that the Earth is losing species 100 to 1,000 times the historical average, upsetting the intricately interconnected natural world. Prominent insect biologist E.O. Wilson at Harvard University argues that a man-made environmental crisis is pushing the Earth toward its sixth big extinction phase, the greatest since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.

However, some battle lines have already formed between developed and developing nations over the convention's strategic mission statement — whether to take action to halt or simply slow the loss of biodiversity by 2020 — and finding a way to equitably share the benefits of genetic resources, such as plants native to poor countries that have been converted into lucrative drug products in the West.

The convention, which will bring together 8,000 delegates from 193 member nations in Nagoya, 170 miles (270 kilometers) west of Tokyo, was born out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. So far, the convention has failed to meet a series of goals set eight years ago to preserve the world's biodiversity against overfishing, deforestation and pollution.

Conservation groups attribute part of that to a lack of political will and funding. They also say that some of the goals until now have been fuzzy, and partly blame their own failure to make a convincing case that action is needed — something they hope to change in Nagoya.

"We haven't been able to successfully get across a message that our society and economies ultimately depend on this biodiversity," said Bill Jackson, deputy director-general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "We have to fix the problem within the next 10 years."

Host country Japan, meanwhile, will be looking to this conference as a chance to portray itself as a protector of biodiversity after helping kill off many of the measures at the CITES, or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, meeting earlier this year that would have limited the trade in tuna, sharks and other marine species.

Divisions between rich and poor nations over how to fairly share in the access and benefits of genetic resources could undermine the gathering, observers say.

For example, the rosy periwinkle, a plant native to Madagascar, produces two cancer-fighting substances. Drug companies have grown the plants and profited from them, but little of the money has returned to Madagascar. Developing countries argue they should receive royalties or a share of the benefits of such natural resources.

The convention aims to address this problem by setting up a legal framework by which producers and users can negotiate to reach mutually agreeable terms to ensure equitable sharing of resources and their benefits.

"Developing countries are putting pressure on developed countries and saying if we don't reach an agreement on this issue, we won't give you what you want on the strategic plan," said Patricia Yakabe Malentaqui, international media manager at the environmental group Conservation International. "All the parties are at risk of polarizing the debate."

Another contentious goal will be setting a percentage of the Earth's land and oceans that should be protected by 2020.

Currently, 13 percent of land and less than 1 percent of open ocean is protected — which can range from a strict nature reserve to an area managed for sustainable use of natural resources. Those percentages need to be raised to 25 percent and 15 percent respectively, Conservation International says.

But even if delegates manage to agree to such targets, carrying them out in real life is another matter. Businesses will likely oppose any limits on their activities and population growth means setting aside such protected areas will become increasingly difficult. Furthermore, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity has no mechanism for enforcing compliance.

Environmental groups argue that creating protected areas reap huge economic rewards. For example, there is plenty of evidence, says IUCN's Jackson, that providing safe havens for fisheries help their populations recover and flourish.

Saving Nature, Economies At Stake In Japan U.N. Talks
David Fogarty and Chisa Fujioka PlanetArk 18 Oct 10;

Envoys from around the world meet in Japan from Monday to try to combat the destruction of nature and to value properly the services of forests, coral reefs and oceans that underpin livelihoods and economic growth.

The United Nations says natural resources, or natural capital, are being lost at an alarming rate and urgent steps need to be taken to combat the destruction of plant and animal species that ensure mankind's survival.

Envoys will hold two weeks of talks in the Japanese city of Nagoya to try to win agreement on new targets and funding to help nations save and better manage vanishing ecosystems.

A treaty on sharing the genetic richness of nature between countries and corporations is also a central focus of the talks that are the culmination of years of negotiations.

Developing nations want a fairer deal in sharing the wealth of their ecosystems, such as medicines created by big pharmaceutical firms, and back the draft treaty, or "access and benefit-sharing" protocol. Failure to agree the pact could derail the talks in Nagoya, conservation groups say.

Drug firms in some rich nations are worried about how it will work in practice, for example, making it harder to get patents.

"Nagoya is a milestone," said the head of the United Nations' Environment Programme, Achim Steiner. "It's the most important attempt in a decade to tackle the issue of biodiversity and ecosystem services," he told Reuters.

The United Nations says countries must fully value the benefits ecosystems bring to economies, such as food, water, clean air and medicines.

Forests are a key source of fresh water and clean air and they help regulate the climate. Coral reefs and mangroves are crucial fish breeding grounds that support mulit-billion dollar fisheries, while also protecting coastlines from storms.

TARGETS

The meeting aims to set new 2020 targets to guide nations after governments largely failed to meet a 2010 target of achieving a significant reduction in biodiversity losses.

Nations will decide either to set a 2020 deadline to halt the loss of biodiversity or opt for taking action toward halting loss of plant and animal species, the draft text shows.

Under a 20-point plan, nations will consider goals covering greater protection of fish stocks, halving or halting the loss and degradation of natural habitats, phase out incentives harmful to biodiversity and conserve much larger land and marine areas.

But developing nations, which own much of the remaining richness of plant and animal species, want a 100-fold increase in funding to achieve these targets.

Steiner said talks about funding could become difficult.

He said rich nations benefitted from nature's riches in the oceans and forests elsewhere on the planet and should be willing to share the costs of protecting and restoring ecosystems.

"Otherwise it is a very unfair deal to save the world's biodiversity, with developing nations having to bear the brunt of the costs," he said.

But he said all governments must put policies and incentives in place to protect nature and that there was only about a decade left to take steps to drive government and business action.

For poorer nations, agreement on the protocol to share genetic benefits could unlock billions of dollars.

Some drug makers, though, are wary.

"A massive amount of money is already spent on research and development for pharmaceutical goods," said Yuji Watanabe, director of intellectual property at Astellas Pharma, Japan's second-biggest drugmaker.

"So additional costs such as in the form of royalties, would completely change the basis for companies' profitability. It could weaken the drive to develop new, improved drugs."

Steiner acknowledged the protocol was "a major frontier in international policy" because it challenged fundamental assumptions about how patents and intellectual property worked.

NATURE ON THE BALANCE SHEET

But the United Nations said putting a value on nature is the only way to make it visible to businesses to help them fully understand the costs of damaging or destroying it.

A U.N.-backed study this month said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion, equivalent to 11 percent of global gross domestic product.

The Nagoya talks also come during increasingly fraught U.N. climate negotiations. Lack of trust between rich and poor nations led to a non-binding climate deal in Copenhagen last year that left many gaps.

"We need a success. What we don't need is a second Copenhagen, that's for sure," Gunter Mitlacher, biodiversity director for WWF Germany, told a briefing in Tokyo on Thursday.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

UN Japan forum 'key time' to solve global nature crisis
Richard Black, BBC News 18 Oct 10;

A major UN meeting aimed at finding solutions to the world's nature crisis is set to open in Japan.

Species are going extinct at 100-1,000 times the natural rate, key habitat is disappearing, and ever more water and land is being used to support people.

Some economists say this is already damaging human prosperity.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting will discuss why governments failed to curb these trends by 2010, as they pledged in 2002.

Delegates will also try to finalise a long-delayed agreement on exploiting natural resources in a fair and equitable way.

Before the start of the two-week meeting, Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), said it was a crucial point in attempts to stem the loss of biodiversity.

"There are moments when issues mature in terms of public perception and political attention, and become key times for action," he told the BBC.

"And this is a moment when the recognition that biodiversity and ecosystems need preservation urgently is high, when people are concerned by it, and are demanding more action from the global community."

A UN-sponsored team of economists has calculated that loss of biodiversity and ecosystems is costing the human race $2 trillion to $5 trillion a year.
Going downhill

Governments first agreed back in 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit, that the ongoing loss of biodiversity needed attention. The CBD was born there, alongside the UN climate convention.

It aims to preserve the diversity of life on Earth, facilitate the sustainable use of plants and animals, and allow fair and equitable exploitation of natural genetic resources.

The convention acquired teeth 10 years later, at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development.

Noting that nature's diversity is "the foundation upon which human civilisation has been built", governments pledged "to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth".

Since 2002, most measures of the health of the natural world have gone downhill rather than up.

The majority of species studied over the period are moving closer to extinction rather than further away, while important natural habitat such as forests, wetlands, rivers and coral reefs continue to shrink or be disturbed.

"Since the 1960s we've doubled our food consumption, our water consumption," said Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"The world's population has doubled, and the economy has grown sixfold; in 2050 there will be 9.2 billion people on the planet."

There are signs of change in some regions. The forest area is growing in Europe and China, while deforestation is slowing in Brazil.

About 12% of the world's land is now under some form of protection.

But in other areas, countries - particularly in the tropics - have made little progress towards the 2010 target.

Government delegates here will consider adopting a new set of targets for 2020 that aim to tackle the causes of biodiversity loss - the expansion of agriculture, pollution, climate change, the spread of alien invasive species, the increasing use of natural resources - which conservationists believe might be a more effective option than setting targets on nature itself.
Difficult birth?

Delegates will also be negotiating a draft agreement on exploiting the genetic resources of the natural world fairly and sustainably.

The protocol, named Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), aims to prevent "biopiracy" while enabling societies with abundant plant and animal life to profit from any drugs or other products that might be made from them.

Agreement on ABS has been pursued since 1992 without producing a result. But after four years of preparatory talks, officials believe the remaining differences can be hammered out here.

"We are confident that on 29 October, we'll celebrate the birth of another baby, with the support of all parties, and we'll have a protocol on access and benefit sharing," said Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD executive secretary.

"This protocol will be a future investment for the human family as a whole."

However, the bitter politicking that has soured the atmosphere in a number of UN environment processes - most notably at the Copenhagen climate summit - threatens some aspects of the Nagoya meeting.

Some developing nations are insisting that the ABS protocol be signed off here before they will agree to the establishment of an international scientific panel to assess biodiversity issues.

The Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is due to be signed off during the current UN General Assembly session in New York.

Many experts believe it is necessary if scientific evidence on the importance of biodiversity loss is to be transmitted effectively to governments, in the same way that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assembles evidence that governments can use when deciding whether to tackle climate change.