Claire Snegaroff Yahoo News 21 Sep 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Already deeply troubled UN plans to brake the planet's dizzying loss of species have been further damaged by a row over setting up a scientific panel to assess Earth's biodiversity, sources here say.
World governments are due to discuss the species crisis in New York on Wednesday, and the consensus is likely to be bleak.
Under Target 7b of the Millennium Development Goals, UN members pledged to achieve by 2010 "a significant reduction" in the rate of wildlife loss.
Yet every expert assessment points to accelerating declines in many species, especially mammals, birds and amphibians, their numbers ravaged by habitat loss, hunting or the suspected impact of climate change.
Further darkening this picture is a row over setting up a top-level panel that, like the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), would provide policymakers with the best scientific assessment on biodiversity.
The mooted organisation, which goes by the unwieldy acronym of IPBES, for Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, would list Earth's species at global and regional level, and spell out the value of them.
The IPBES was endorsed at a meeting in Busan, South Korea in June that gathered members of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
In theory, it should be rubber-stamped in this session of the General Assembly.
But French officials and sources in campaign groups say that the green light could well be delayed.
Developing countries have said a formal decision on the panel is "premature" and want to postpone it to next year.
The reason: they want to press rich countries on a proposal whereby a poor economy would receive payments for use of genetic "patrimony" -- unique species of plants or animals that, for instance, are found to have a commercial or medical use.
This scheme would ramp up precious income for badly strapped countries and also be an encouragement to nurture forests, wetlands and other vital habitats, they argue.
The objections were spelt out in a letter to the General Assembly on September 7 by the so-called Group of 77 and China, a bloc gathering the world's developing nations.
The group "may consider" the decision on the IPBES after the upcoming conference of the CBD in Nagoya, Japan, which runs from October 18 to 29, and a meeting of the governing council of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in February 2011, the letter says.
"It's a core question for the G77," said Claudio Chiarolla of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IRRI), a Paris thinktank.
"If there's no deal on protocol and finance, there'll be no deal on the rest, on all the things that are important for developed countries in long-term conservation," Chiarolla said.
France's deputy ecology minister, Chantal Jouanno, who is taking part in the UN deliberations, said she was dismayed.
"The IPBES is the basis for future commitments on biodiversity," she told AFP on Monday.
"It absolutely has to be okayed this year if we want it to be operational in 2011."
Jouanno took aim at "certain countries," which she did not identify, that "are trying to take the IPBES hostage."
The G77 is itself divided, she said, adding that 28 African states, meeting in Libreville, Gabon, pledged last week to "support the establishment" of the panel. Objections may be eased in bilateral talks, she said.
In July 2009 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that Earth was hurtling towards a mass extinction.
Out of 44,838 species on the IUCN's famous "Red List", at least 16,928 are threatened with being wiped out, it said.
World Examines "Impossible" Goal To Halt Extinctions
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 21 Sep 10;
World leaders will next week consider a target for halting extinctions of animals and plants by 2020 that many experts rate impossibly ambitious given mounting threats such as climate change and loss of habitats.
"Biodiversity losses are accelerating," said Anne Larigauderie, executive director of the Paris-based Diversitas Secretariat, which groups international scientists and reckons the goal laid out in a draft U.N. plan is out of reach for 2020.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 22, nations will discuss how to protect the diversity of plants and animals -- vital to everything from food to fresh water -- after failing to reach a goal set in 2002 of a "significant reduction" in losses by 2010.
The world has made some progress since 2002, such as in expanding protected areas for wildlife. But U.N. studies say extinction rates are running up to 1,000 times higher than those inferred from fossil records in the worst crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.
Larigauderie said scientists had been largely left out of defining new goals. "Until we have an organized process we will continue to have these sort of feel-good objectives that we are going to miss again," she said of halting losses by 2020.
A draft U.N. strategic plan for 2020, to be formally adopted at U.N. talks in Japan in October, calls for "effective and urgent action" either "to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2020" or "toward halting the loss of biodiversity" with no deadline.
IMMENSE STRUGGLE
"Our goal has to be to halt the loss of biodiversity," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.
"Can we already agree on targets and timelines that lead us to that over the course of a decade? It will be an immense struggle," he told Reuters, urging tough goals.
Apart from the overall target for 2020, some targets in a draft strategic plan are more measurable -- such as an option of "ending overfishing" or "halving" deforestation by 2020.
A rising human population, spread of cities, pollution and global warming are adding to problems that are damaging nature and vital free services ranging from insect pollination of crops to coral reefs that are nurseries for fish stocks.
Environmental group Greenpeace said the world should set the strictest possible goals for 2020.
"We favor halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020," said Nathalie Rey of Greenpeace. "We are at a crossroads where we are at a point of no return. You have to stay ambitious."
A U.N. study this year said the world risked "tipping points" of no return such as a drying out of the Amazon rainforest, a build-up of fertilizers that bring dead zones in the oceans or ocean acidification linked to climate change.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which groups governments, scientists and environmentalists, believes it is too ambitious to set a goal of halting losses by 2020.
It has argued for a vaguer target of "putting in place by 2020 all the necessary policies and actions to prevent further biodiversity loss." Beyond that, it wants a 2050 deadline for conserving and restoring biodiversity.
(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Biodiversity Talks Bog Down over Genetic Resources
Aprille Muscara IPS News 21 Sep 10;
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21, 2010 (IPS) - While officials meeting in Montreal, Canada failed to finalise a key protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Tuesday, biodiversity is scheduled to be at the top of Wednesday's agenda of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Some 140 world leaders have gathered here this week to reaffirm their commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline. Goal seven, environmental sustainability, includes a target to "Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss."
But experts say that the loss of biodiversity is occurring at an unprecedented rate. As a result, the MDG7 target aim to substantially curb this trend by the end of this year will not be met.
"Tropical forests continue to be felled, destroying valuable endemic species and disrupting local, regional and global climates," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year. "Climate change and ocean acidification are destroying coral reefs. Fisheries are increasingly overexploited, condemning millions of the world's poorest people to unemployment and malnutrition."
Ban designated 2010 as the 'International Year of Biodiversity' to raise awareness of this issue. And the MDG summit's last day, Wednesday, will coincide with the world body's first-ever high-level meeting on biodiversity.
The U.N. estimates that species are disappearing at one hundred times the natural rate of extinction. Twenty-one percent of mammals, 30 percent of amphibians, 12 percent of birds and 27 percent of reef-building corals are in danger of dying off, says the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles a 'Red List of Threatened Species.'
"Communities everywhere will reap the negative consequences [of biodiversity loss], but the poorest people and the most vulnerable countries will suffer most," Ban said. "Seventy percent of the world's poor live in rural areas, and depend directly on biodiversity for their daily sustenance and income."
Meanwhile, a three-day meeting meant to iron out the details of a CBD draft protocol on Access and Benefits-Sharing (ABS) finished in Montreal Tuesday with important issues still outstanding.
"Money will flow if we can reach an agreement on this, so we're calling on governments to show real leadership and try to get over their differences and come up with something they can agree on," Jane Smart, global thematic director of the Biodiversity Conservation Group of IUCN, told IPS. "It's become very politically a hot issue."
Entered into force in 1993, the CBD is a legally-binding international treaty aimed at conserving biodiversity, ensuring the sustainable use of resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
The latter objective, referred to as Access and Benefit- sharing, has become a contentious topic in discussions among member states. According to the Secretariat of the CBD, ABS "refers to the way genetic resources – whether from plants, animals or microorganisms – are accessed in countries of origin, and how the benefits that result from their use by various research institutes, universities or private companies are shared with the people or countries that provide them."
Next month, the tenth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP10) to the CBD is scheduled to take place in Nagoya, Japan. It was hoped that the ABS protocol, which has undergone heated negotiations since last March, would be ironed out at this week's Montreal meeting. "It's very, very critical for the Nagoya COP that the ABS regime is finalised, because then the convention can come together with its three objectives… on the way to being now fully implemented," Cyriaque Sendashonga, director of programme and policy of IUCN, told IPS.
At the last meeting to negotiate the ABS protocol, held in Montreal in July, Canada objected to generalised ABS requirements, instead favouring contractually negotiated terms depending on the parties and resources involved. But developing countries and rights groups worry that this approach might result in inequitable outcomes for indigenous and other minority peoples.
"We go to Nagoya with a number of key issues to finalise," said Timothy Hodges of Canada and Fernando Casas of Colombia, the co-chairs of this week's meeting, in a statement. Governments have agreed to conclude negotiations as soon as possible and no later than the COP10, they added.
"What we're really hoping is that the final outcome, the final regime is one that is fair and agreeable to all parties involved and is able to achieve the objective it's meant to achieve: To facilitate or encourage… access to genetic resources, ensure that there is fairness in those agreements, ensure that… the indigenous people, the local communities, the women… who have a primary role, a key role in protecting those resources are rewarded for that effort," Sendashonga told IPS.
(END)
Nations urge deal on protocol to stem 'bio-piracy'
* Developing nations renew calls for biodiversity protocol
* Measure would control access to plants, bio-resources
* May have major implications for drug firms, agribusiness
Helen Popper Reuters AlertNet 22 Sep 10;
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Developing countries called on Wednesday for renewed efforts to agree a U.N. protocol to control access to genetic resources, a step with potentially huge implications for drug companies.
Countries with a rich variety of plant and animal species, including Brazil, India and Colombia, say the measure would help end centuries of "bio-piracy" and ensure developing countries benefit from discoveries based on native species or traditional medicine.
Bio-piracy refers to the commercial exploitation of plants or other genetic matter without adequately compensating the communities where they are found.
"Countries like Brazil and India have been victims of bio-piracy over many decades and we need to protect our bio-resources and we have to protect our traditional knowledge," Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters during the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
The protocol on "access and benefit sharing" was expected to be finalized at talks in Montreal earlier this week and then adopted at a meeting in Japan next month. However, diplomats failed to finalize a draft. [ID:nN22271900]
"Between now and Nagoya, it is up to the ministers to find the political solution to some of the issues," Ramesh said. The minister said the protocol would put controls over the commercial use of traditional knowledge as well as genetic resources such as plant species.
The so-called ABS protocol would, among other things, affect how and when researchers, universities, and companies from developed countries could use genes from plants or animals that originate in developing countries.
For example, it would set rules on how and when drug companies could use plants from the Amazon forest in their work and it would commit them to share the benefits or royalties of any discoveries with the indigenous peoples of the area.
Colombia's Vice Minister for the Environment Carlos Castano said agreement on the protocol was vital to ensure "the benefits of biodiversity reach indigenous local communities."
Officials in developing countries say it will also help safeguard their property rights.
"In Brazil we had a fruit whose name was patented by another country ... and we had a fight over the right to use the name of our fruit in our products," said Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, Brazil's lead climate negotiator, referring to the Acai berry.
"We won that fight but that's the kind of uncertainty we want to overcome with this new regime."
The protocol is part of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, which recognizes the sovereign rights of states over their natural resources in areas within their jurisdiction and legally binds countries to conserve biological diversity. (Editing by Eric Walsh)
World failing in biodiversity struggle, UN chief warns
Yahoo News 22 Sep 10;
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The world is failing to stop the alarming loss of the Earth's species and habitat, a UN summit was warned Wednesday amid multinational bickering over who pays for the rescue.
"Too many people still fail to grasp the implications of this destruction," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned as he called for greater international action to protect plants and animals. "I urge all leaders present today to commit to reducing biodiversity loss."
Recent reports have warned that species are disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of disappearance because of human activity and now climate change.
UN states have missed an agreed 2010 deadline to achieve "a significant reduction" in the rate of wildlife loss, the UN chief said. "We have all heard of the web of life. The way we live threatens to trap us in a web of death," he commented.
The international community is locked in a battle however on how to set up a panel to assess Earth's biodiversity.
The mooted organisation, the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), would list Earth's species at global and regional level, and spell out the value of them.
But diplomatic sources said the establishment of the group could be delayed, with developing countries holding out for a system that would give poor countries payments for the use of genetic "patrimony" -- unique species of plants or animals that, for instance, are found to have a commercial or medical use.
This would increase income for poor economies and also be an encouragement to nurture forests, wetlands and other vital habitats, they argue.
The Group of 77 developing countries, joined by China, reinforced the need for "fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of the biodiversity," in their presentation to the UN summit.
Ban said that a meeting on the 193-nation Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan next month will discuss the question of how to pay for the "equitable sharing" of the benefits from natural resources.
But many experts and ministers have said that the world cannot afford to delay setting up the new panel.
Jose-Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, highlighted the stakes at the UN summit.
"We will not be able to mitigate climate change or adapt to its impacts, or prevent desertification and land degradation, if we don't protect our ecosystems and biodiversity," Barroso said.
He said it was crucial for the Nagoya meeting next month to adopt a strategic plan that would force all countries "to raise their game; to tackle the key drivers of biodiversity loss; to prevent ecological tipping points from being reached."
He said any accord with developing nations "should ensure transparency, legal certainty and predictability for those seeking access to genetic resources, as well as the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from them."
"We need a deal in Nagoya," said Brazil's Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira. She called on the UN summit to "raise the profile of biodiversity and galvanize the political will and engagement of all countries."
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