Meet aims to stem biodiversity loss

19 May 2008 07:01am

An international conference on protecting the world's wildlife is set to begin amid concerns that populations of species have declined by almost a third since 1970.

Government representatives are meeting in Bonn, Germany, over the next fortnight for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which will discuss aims to achieve a "significant reduction" in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Despite the pledge, made by Governments in 2002 under the convention, WWF's Living Planet Index published last week showed populations of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals had declined by 27% in 35 years to 2005.

The conservation charity's index, which looks at species ranging from the Amur tiger and the chimpanzee to the polar bear and green turtle, has been adopted as one of the official indicators of whether the international community is halting biodiversity loss.

Ahead of the global conference, WWF warned that it was "very unlikely" governments would meet the 2010 target.

The annual meeting of the biodiversity convention has been regarded in the past as something of a talking shop, and this year EU negotiators are keen to see greater moves towards implementing the agreement.

Delegates from the UK and other European countries also want to see the issue of sustainable biofuels discussed, as well as agreement on criteria for protecting areas of the oceans which are beyond national boundaries - although both of these issues could prove politically controversial.

Before the meeting, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention, said improving the diversity of agricultural crops was needed to address the growing world food crisis. Spiralling deforestation rates also had to be reversed as much of the world's wildlife was found in its forests, he said.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said the planet's sixth mass extinction was under way, driven for the first time in history by mainly human activity.

"Over the coming decades the pace of loss of species could rise to 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate," he warned.

© The Press Association