Fishmongers in a Tokyo fish market checking out tuna fish for trade. The bluefin tuna has been listed by conservationists as a critically endangered species. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
BERLIN: The United Nations yesterday declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, to raise awareness of the loss of animal and plant species in the face of climate change and human encroachment.
‘In 2010, I call on every country and each citizen of our planet to engage in a global alliance to protect life on Earth,’ UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said in a statement.
Launching the event, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged industrialised and emerging countries to invest more in protecting wildlife. ‘We need a sea change. Here, now, immediately – not some time in the future,’ she said.
Research has showed extinction rates run at 1,000 times their natural pace due to human activity. Up to a fifth of plant and animal species risk extinction, according to experts, and nations have missed a goal set by the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in 2002 to significantly slow the loss of biodiversity by 2010.
CBD executive secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf said it was essential to set new targets this year. ‘We have established a target and missed it… We have to learn the lesson to ensure that in 2020, we will not say ‘we have missed the target’.’
A large ongoing UN-sponsored study into the economics of biodiversity suggested that deforestation alone costs the global economy around US$2.5 trillion (S$3.5 trillion) each year.
The UN hopes some kind of legally binding treaty to curb biodiversity loss can be agreed at the CBD summit, to be held in Japan in October, BBC reported.
However, given the lack of appetite for legally binding environmental agreements as displayed at the Copenhagen summit, it is unclear just what kind of deal might materialise on biodiversity.
One third of the 1.8 million identified species are under growing threat. Among those destined to be hardest hit by climate change are the beluga whale, clownfish and the emperor penguin. The UN has been pursuing new ways of raising public awareness on the issue.
The first event will begin on Jan 21 in a meeting at Unesco’s Paris headquarters, which is expected to bring together heads of state and their representatives. More events will follow during the year.
‘We are facing an extinction crisis,’ said Ms Jane Smart of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. ‘The loss of… natural diversity that underpins all life on the planet is a serious threat to humankind now and in the future.’
REUTERS
Fish Farming 