View topic - Canadian Biodiversity: Ecosystem Status and Trends 2010

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. It is the intention of the Canadian Councils of Resource Ministers to use this report as a partial assessment of Canada’s progress towards the United Nations biodiversity target “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.

World leaders tackle a tall order: How to preserve life on Earth

PATRICK WHITE

Last updated Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010 11:30AM EDT


Over the next 11 days, 193 national delegations will descend on Nagoya, Japan, in pursuit of a vexing goal befitting a deity: how to preserve life on Earth.

At stake is the fate of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international agreement signed amid great hope and fanfare in the early 1990s, the status of which has fizzled steadily ever since. The document bound countries to cut mass species loss “significantly” and preserve 10 per cent of the world’s ecological regions by 2010. But this year brought the sobering realization that not one country had met those targets.

After 20 years of high-level talks and treaties, mass extinction continues apace at between 1,500 and 15,000 species a year, depending on the estimate, and leaders are running out of opportunities to turn it around.

“This is the one chance governments have to fix the loss of species and loss of biodiversity, said Bill Jackson, deputy director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based group working closely with governments in Nagoya. “In some ecosystems, we only have 10 or 15 years left before they’re gone.”

Part of the problem is cosmetic. Since then-prime-minister Brian Mulroney first signed the convention on behalf of Canada in 1992, the issue of biodiversity loss has been overshadowed by sexier environmental fixations such as holes in the ozone, electric cars, acid rain and climate change.

...

With its ambitious targets undermined by inaction, the future viability of the convention hangs in the balance. Several groups have suggested new 2020 targets, most with a heavy emphasis on marine habitat, the most neglected of all ecosystems over the past decade.

The Montreal-based CBD Secretariat (funded in part by $800,000 in federal funds) has proposed 20 new targets that include the elimination of subsidies harmful to biodiversity, reducing by half the degradation of forest ecosystems, eliminating destructive fishing methods and protecting 15 per cent of land and sea areas.

Mr. Prentice will attend the final days of negotiations as a symbol of how seriously Canada takes the convention.

Missing the 2010 targets should inspire us all to do better. I do hope we will successfully negotiate a new protocol,” Mr. Prentice said. “It’s an extremely important summit because biodiversity is an area where we all need to improve. This is a real issue for us and our children.”

Most of the world's species loss and ecosystem destruction is going on in developing nations that can't afford protection measures.

The study found that forests, reefs and oceans account for 47 to 89 percent of the effective income of rural and poor households in many large developing countries. This source of income has generally been overlooked by many economists, who have focused on traditional sectors like manufacturing, mining, retailing, construction and energy generation.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/ ... diversity/