UN Biodiversity Conference Ends With Package To Protect Wildlife
UN talks on Friday yielded a package of measures aimed at staving off what scientists fear is a mass extinction of Earths species by Mankind and blocking irreparable damage to the ecosystems on which human life depends.
After a 12-day conference, 191 nations attending the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany, agreed to set up the first-ever deep-sea nature preserve and expand reserves on land to an area that, if combined, would be nearly twice the size of Germany.
And the conference also took the first steps toward setting global standards for developing biofuels, a renewable energy that has been accused of accelerating deforestation and widening hunger as farmers swap food crops for fuel crops.
Another initiative at the conference was to set up an independent panel of scientists to deliver regular assessments on the state biodiversity, modeled on the lines of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Delegates to the UN conference agreed to develop measures to counter bio-piracy and protect marine wildlife and rainforests.
Part of the plan to halt bio-piracy is a new plan to reimburse (godtgøre) biodiverse developing countries that provide wild strains that strengthen crops in industrialized nations against disease.
A major point of discussion during the conference was the questionable ecological benefits of biofuels and the strain that large-scale production of the fuels might put on crop and forest land. Delegates agreed to take a more definitive stand on biofuels at the 2010 conference.
Among the outcomes of the two-week meeting were initiatives announced by countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, the DR Congo, Bosnia and Brazil to earmark tens of millions of hectares for nature preserves.
he host country Germany has launched an initiative to set up an internet-based “Life Web” to link countries offering protected areas with countries prepared to fund them.
Although the conference failed to establish rules to compensate developing nations for genetic resources extracted by rich nations for use in medicines and cosmetics, it has produced a plan for the negotiations of an agreement expected to be reached at the next UN biodiversity conference in the Japanese city of Nagoya in two years.
Delegates also agreed to take a more definitive stand on biofuels at the next round of talks in Nagoya and called for the development of sound policy frameworks on biofuels whose mass production may put strain on crop and forest land.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
