World losing biodiversity at unprecedented rate: UN
By IANSFriday, January 7, 2011
CHENNAI - The extinction of biodiversity due to global warming is thousand times higher than natural extinction and irreparable degradation may take place if ecosystems are pushed beyond certain tipping point, a UN official said here Friday.
Citing the third report on Global Biodiversity Outlook, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said that the state of main ecosystem is particularly worrying as increasing impacts of climate change and ocean acidification are becoming apparent.
“We are losing our biodiversity thousand times faster than natural extinction, leading to widespread and irreversible loss of natural ecosystem,” Djoghlaf said while addressing a session on Biodiversity-Focus on Fragile Coastal Ecosystem at the Indian Science Congress here.
He said that in October 2010, the international community had gathered at the convention’s 10th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP 10) at Nagoya, Japan, to adopt a new strategic plan for protecting the biodiversity during 2011-2020 period.
“Building on our success and failures to date, the new strategic plan incorporates a 2020 biodiversity target and sub-target, and contains a means of implementation as well as a monitoring and evaluation mechanism,” he said.
The UN official called for Indian research community becoming a leader in achieving Nagoya vision. India will host the next meeting on Conference of Parties (CoP 11) in 2012.
“The stakes could not be higher, what we do, or fail to do, over the next 10 years will influence the well-being and prosperity of billions of people for generation to come,” he added.
