Germany: A step in the right direction for biodiversity

World leaders attending the 9th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) held in Bonn over the course of the last 2 weeks have pledged their commitment to ?substantially reduce? the global loss of biodiversity within two years. Some nations, like Germany and Norway have backed their pledge with cash promises: Germany?s Chancellor Merkel has promised 500 million euros until 2013 to protect forests and a further 500 million the following year, while Norway has pledged 2 billion euros over the next 5 years. But environmental NGOs, while happy with the step ?in the right direction?, estimate that 20-27 billion euros a year are needed to stop the destruction of the rainforests, save its animals and plants and to guarantee the rights of people living in the forests.

More than 7 thousand representatives from 191 countries attended the two week Conference, that ends on Friday May 30 and aims to come up with a clear roadmap towards an international set of rules to conserve and sustainably manage the world?s biodiversity and to govern the equitable sharing of biodiversity?s benefits. The conference is the largest gathering to date of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity that opened for signature in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and has since been joined by 191 Parties giving it near-universal participation among world countries.

Sigmar Gabriel, German Environment Minister and President of the Conference, said that the Conference aimed to produce a roadmap similar to the one reached in Bali last December. No mention was made of the fact that that same roadmap has been criticised by NGOs for being under-ambitious, biased towards the interests of fuel guzzling powerful nations and for not allocating sufficient funds to fight climate change.

Nevertheless, the 3 day high level meeting between 3 heads of state (Germany, Canada and Palau) and 87 ministers held May 28-30 is considered to be pivotal to reaching agreement on measures ? such as the creation of a network of protected areas, the use of biofuels and the management of biological resources – needed to achieve the target of reducing the rate of the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Moreover, as highlighted by the CBD?s Executive secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf, Heads of state had never before attended a conference on biodiversity: ?Their participation highlights the fact that world leaders are recognizing the importance, seriousness and urgency of conserving our biodiversity?, he said. Netumbo Nandi Ndaitwah, minister of environment and tourism in Namibia, on the other hand, pointed out that parliamentarians are the ?real agenda setters? and that their presence proves that ?they cannot afford to stand by while the environment is being destroyed?.

An important signal, therefore, but one that is long overdue. When it comes to climate change, the threat is readily captured by the popular imagination. ?All you have to do is show an iceberg melting or barren peak of Mount Kilimanjaro and you have made your case?, notes Abdul Zakri, director of the UN University?s Institute who co-chaired the UN?s Millennium Ecosystems Assessment in 2005. ?But when it comes to biodiversity people don?t really know what is at stake?, adds Zakri, who counts on the CBD buying in the political legitimacy needed to tackle the problem scientifically.

On Wednesday morning, as the high level meeting kicked off, Greenpeace activists set fire to a five metre high tree stump, the remainder of a tree felled in the Amazon, on the River Rhine in Bonn to remind Merkel of the need for urgent action. Meanwhile 50 environmentalists unfurled banners reading: Forests are burning. Save the climate. The action plan proposed by the peaceful green warriors is simple: rich polluters should pay into a UN administered fund that would be used to reward developing nations that protect their biodiversity. The reason for the urgency? With deforestation responsible for a fifth of all global greenhouse emissions, and plant and animal species becoming extinct at a rate 100 times the natural rate of extinction due to human activities, the maths is easy.

More info

• www.cbd.int
• www.greenpeace.org