Conserving the planet’s species and habitat was not only central to sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals, it also had the potential to generate annual economic gains worth trillions of dollars, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during the opening of the General Assembly’s high-level meeting as a contribution to the International Year of Biodiversity.
Allowing biodiversity to decline was like throwing money out the window, he continued. “We must stop thinking of environmental protection as a cost. It is an investment that goes hand-in-hand with the other investments that you, as Heads of State and Government, must make to consolidate economic growth and human well-being in your countries.”
Warning that the 2010 deadline for substantially reducing the rate of biodiversity loss would not be met, Mr. Ban urged leaders to muster the political will to turn that goal into reality, as their legacy and “gift to generations to come”. He also called on them to push forward the strategic plan on biodiversity and the 2050 biodiversity vision expected to be adopted at the Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in Nagoya, Japan, next month.
He said that, together, those initiatives would address such pressing concerns as the need to set concrete national targets before Rio+20, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, as well as access to and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from genetic resources. “It is a solid plan, on paper. But it will need leadership to bring it to life,” he said, calling on ministers of the environment, finance and planning, economic production and transport, health and social welfare, to do their part.
Echoing the Secretary-General’s concerns, General Assembly President Joseph Deiss (Switzerland) expressed hope that today’s discussions would contribute to the negotiations in Japan by ensuring that the strategic plan and vision would be ambitious and feasible. The Millennium target on environmental protection, set out in the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, to stop biodiversity loss had not been met, but it was heartening that the international community was mobilizing to address the threat and take steps to assess the economic value of ecosystems.
He recalled that, last June, the international community had agreed at an ad-hoc inter-governmental and multi-stakeholder meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, to create the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) with the aim of closing the information gap separating scientists from policymakers on the question of biodiversity and ecosystems.
He said preserving biodiversity was inseparable from the fight against poverty and the struggle to improve health and security for the present and future generations. “Preserving biodiversity is not a luxury, it is a duty,” he said, lamenting that worldwide human activity and climate change were destroying it, particularly in developing countries, with dire consequences for the world’s poorest people.
Yemen’s representative, speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, agreed with that assessment, saying, “It is the poor of the world who will suffer the most if we do not stop the loss of our biological resources, since the poor depend disproportionately on biodiversity for their day-to-day livelihoods.”
Biodiversity was critical for developing countries, home to some of the world’s rarest species, he said, pointing out that species were disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of extinction. In order to maintain biodiversity, it was crucial for States to implement in a mutually supportive manner the three objectives of the Convention: biodiversity conservation; sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from genetic resources, including by appropriate access to them and the transfer of relevant technologies as well as funding.
He said global partnerships and international commitments must be strengthened so that developing countries – the principal owners of biodiversity resources and the traditional knowledge associated with them – reaped the benefits of their use. Moreover, the misappropriation of genetic resources and “biopiracy” must end, he said, stressing the need to adopt the protocol on access and benefit sharing in Nagoya.
Similarly, Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s Minister for the Environment, called on States parties that would be attending the Nagoya Conference to negotiate that protocol as well as the post-2010 plan and a strategy for resource mobilization with attention and urgency. The international community should also support national agendas to meet targets on biodiversity and ensure country ownership through predictable and sufficient resources and technology.
She stressed the need to “rescue the spirit of the Rio-92 Conference” which had led to the adoption of the Biodiversity Convention in order to seal a deal in Nagoya. Particularly worrying was the fact that, in the past century, certain economic sectors had benefited from exploiting biodiversity, leaving ecosystem degradation and increased poverty in their wake. “We need strong and determined responses and political will to change this scenario, in particular in the run-up to the Rio+20 Conference,” she stressed. Conservation and sustainable use of biological resources was crucial for sustainable development and poverty eradication for all.
José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said that European nations were doing their part to avert biodiversity loss, having provided $ 1 billion annually from 2002 to 2008 for that purpose. They had also contributed significantly recently to replenishing the Global Environment Facility, earmarking $ 1.2 billion for biodiversity, a 28 per cent increase over the last replenishment.
He called for reforming, eliminating and reorienting subsidies harmful to biodiversity as well as funding for ecosystem services and other market-based instruments. The European Union was prepared to work to improve and ensure long-term sustainable support for implementation, but all parties must share responsibility and ensure biodiversity objectives were given sufficient priority in Government plans and programmes.
Also today, the Assembly held morning and afternoon thematic panel discussions on the way forward to achieving the Convention’s three objectives and the internationally agreed biodiversity goals and targets. Co-chairing the morning panel were President Danilo Türk of Slovenia and President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, while the afternoon panel was co-chaired by María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s Minister for Heritage, and Erik Solheim, Norway’s Minister for the Environment and International Development.
In closing remarks, the General Assembly President summarized the proceedings from the day’s thematic panel discussions.
Source: CBD Press Release dated September 22, 2010.
