by HAIDER RIZVI
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11, 2010 (IPS) – In a bid to pressure policymakers to take urgent action to implement a major United Nations treaty on the preservation of plant and animal species, the world body has launched a global campaign to raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity.
“Biodiversity is our life,” said Veerle Vandeweerd, the U.N. Development Programme’s energy and environment director, at a news conference to promote the campaign declaring 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.
Like other development experts, Vandeweerd said that actions to reduce poverty and fight climate change would bear no fruit if the implementation of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity remained slow.
Rural communities in many parts of the world are “suffering due to the loss of biodiversity,” she said, noting that biodiversity and ecosystem services are vital for the survival of rural poor and indigenous populations.
Scientific literature suggests that almost 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth, such as fresh water, pollination, and the regulation of regional climate and pests, are being undermined as a result of human activity.
The treaty on biodiversity calls for substantial actions to reverse losses in plant and animal species by 2010. It also seeks sustainable use of natural resources and benefit-sharing arising from the use of genetic resources.
According to scientists, over the past 50 years, species have disappeared a thousand times faster than the natural rate. That has happened as a result of increasing demand for resources. Unlike climate change, however, this issue has yet to gain close attention.
U.N. officials have repeatedly said that, despite some progress, policymakers around the world have not only largely failed to deliver on the issue of biodiversity preservation, but also lack a proper understanding of the significance of this issue.
Inter Press Service for more