While the extinction of mammals or sea-life have long caught the public imagination, pressing concerns over food prices and stocks, allied to global awareness of the dangers of climate change, means the Earth's plant life -- as a means of sustenance and of maintaining nature's balance -- is suddenly catapulting its way up the political and environmental agenda.

The ninth meeting of countries who signed up to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, opening on Monday, will be a new beginning, according to German Chancellor and host Angela Merkel.

At the base political level, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that promises made in Brazil 16 years ago have not been kept, despite the Rio deal setting a deadline of 2010 for a significant reduction in the present rate of species extinction.

"We are not on the right path towards slowing the erosion of biodiversity," said Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, France's ecology minister.

One in four mammal species, one in eight among birds, a third of amphibian creatures and 70 percent of all plant life made the most recent endangered list issued by another UN agency, the World Conservation Union (WCU).

Man is directly blamed for the accelerating threat to global biodiversity.

The spread of invasive species -- valued for commercial trade reasons -- plus the effects of tourism and developments in agricultural technology, each share responsibility, along with climate change.

For experts attending the two-week gathering in Bonn, maintaining the myriad diversity of nature represents a life assurance policy covering man's future in the face of global warming.

Over the last 100 years, for example, global agriculture has centred on just three primary crops -- rice, wheat and corn -- to the detriment of all others.

This dependency elevates the risk of a crisis which goes beyond price rises, according to the Convention's Executive Secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf.

Developing countries, for their part, are demanding a more equal distribution of natural resources.

So the Bonn conference aims to produce a roadmap for the negotiation by 2010 of a whole raft of rules governing access to genetic resources -- and the re-distribution of benefits gained from their use.

The fight against bio-piracy is growing issue, with private companies accused of exploiting the natural resources of developing countries and associated knowledge acquired by their peoples.

Deforestation remains a major topic, with Djoghlaf stating that "each year, more than 10 million hectares (100,000 square kilometres) of forest are destroyed, whereas 80 percent of the world's biodiversity is found in tropical rainforests."

The link with climate change is inescapable, as deforestation contributes to the greenhouse effect blamed for global warming.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, wants the Bonn conference to be seen as an ecological "watershed" in the same way as the December 2007 Bali conference -- with a little help from Al Gore and friends -- burst public consciousness on climate change.

Work is already underway on establishing a similar Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity, with the planned body likely to take up its function as early as 2009.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Farming Today - Suppliers and Technology

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News