BBC World 'needs new wildlife body'

[Guest guest]

> * World 'needs new wildlife body' *

>A new global organisation is needed to slow the

>loss of plant and animal species, scientists

>argue.

>Full story:

>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/sci/tech/5196008.stm

World 'needs new wildlife body'

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News website

 

 

The world needs a new global organisation

dedicated to stemming the loss of plant and

animal species.

 

That is the argument put forward by a group of

eminent academics in this week's edition of the

journal Nature.

 

They call for the establishment of an

Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity (IPB) to

parallel the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC).

 

Recent studies show continuing loss of

biodiversity, with the hippo and polar bear just

added to the danger list.

 

The 2006 Red List of Threatened Species showed

more than 16,000 plants and animals sliding

towards their demise, including a third of

amphibian species and a quarter of mammals.

 

" The international community is failing on its

biodiversity targets, " said Alfred Oteng-Yeboah

from the Council for Scientific and Industrial

Research (CSIR), the Ghanaian government's

science advisory body.

 

 

" And we see [the new body] as a process to

actually move the actions forward, to ensure that

people get engaged in all kinds of activity that

will actually halt the loss of biodiversity, " he

told the BBC News website from Accra.

 

Dr Oteng-Yeboah is one of the 19 signatories of

the Nature letter, who also include former IPCC

head Robert Watson from the World Bank, and the

towering figure of Peter Raven, director of the

Missouri Botanical Garden.

 

Slow progress

 

The Convention on Biological Diversity, spawned

by the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992,

commits governments to achieving at least a

significant reduction in the rate of species and

ecosystem loss by 2010.

 

But year after year, with the publication of

successive Red Lists and numerous other

authoritative scientific reports, it becomes

clear that progress is not fast enough to meet

that goal.

 

Equally clear is the knock-on impact on human

livelihoods, particularly in developing nations.

 

As the Nature letter puts it: " Because

biodiversity loss is essentially irreversible, it

poses serious threats to sustainable development

and the quality of life of future generations. "

 

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a vast

four-year international research programme which

began to report its findings last year, found

that two-thirds of " ecosystem services " - the

benefits which humans derive from the natural

world - are being eroded.

 

Even when these services could be protected,

they often are not, sometimes because

policymakers are not acting on the available

science.

 

" One of the most dramatic examples is

mangroves, " said Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist

with the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

 

" Scientists including economists have made it

very clear that mangroves are incredibly valuable

as mangroves, much more valuable than they are as

shrimp farms, " he told the BBC News website.

 

" But because of political reasons, mangroves get

converted into shrimp ponds which produce cheap

shrimps for export at the cost of long-term

environmental protection. "

 

Many bodies

 

Several global bodies with a remit to reduce

biodiversity loss already exist, including the

United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and

IUCN, which publishes the Red Lists.

 

WHAT ARE THE THREATS?

Human activities threaten 99% of Red List species

Habitat loss and degradation are the main

threats, affecting more than 80% of listed birds,

mammals and amphibians

Climate change is increasingly recognised as a serious threat

Other issues relating to human activity include

introduction of alien species, over-exploitation

and pollution

All involve a majority of the world's

governments, and IUCN in particular is closely

linked with conservation bodies in the academic

and NGO spheres.

 

Initiatives to build a new global biodiversity

alliance have been underway for a few years now,

and were given a huge boost last year by the

French president Jacques Chirac, who spoke

approvingly of the concept at a conference in

Paris.

 

Even by the standards of the jargon-laden

conservation community, the name of the

initiative - the Consultative Process Towards an

International Mechanism Of Scientific Expertise

on Biodiversity (Imoseb) - is a real mouthful.

 

Now, through the Nature letter, the concept has

acquired a new name, the Intergovernmental Panel

on Biodiversity (IPB).

 

Jeffrey McNeely, who was not a signatory on the

letter in Nature, supports the idea.

 

He believes the key issue is to integrate

science with policymaking, in a body that could

co-ordinate and commission research with the full

involvement of governments which would have to

decide whether to implement its recommendations.

 

But, he said, it would need money and political

commitment on a level which governments have not

yet displayed on biodiversity if it is to

succeed. " We, the IUCN, would love to be able to

play this role, but nobody funds us to play this

role, " he said.

 

 

" So to be realistic, we're willing to be part of

a larger group of institutions and governments

who are willing to put in the necessary funds to

make this happen.

 

" It's not going to be cheap; it'll need

significant investment - we're not sure exactly

how much, but certainly more than anybody has

given us. "

 

The proposed new body, Imoseb or IPB, may arise

from the ongoing process of UN reform that could

also re-write Unep's mandate.

 

In the end, the success of any international

attempt to stem biodiversity loss will have less

to do with internal structures and acronyms than

with the will of funding and regulating

governments.

 

The parallel of climate change leads to thoughts

of the Kyoto Protocol, which attempts, among

other things, to sanction governments that miss

targets on greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Should, or could, a biodiversity agreement ever

emerge with similar teeth? If it did, would those

teeth slowly be pulled, as have those of Kyoto,

when uncomfortable political realities became

clear?

 

Richard.Black-INTERNET

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/5196008.stm

 

Published: 2006/07/20 07:31:11 GMT

 

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