Biodiversity: Variety as the spice of life

[Staff]

Biodiversity: Variety as the spice of life
Conservation is quite literally vital. This is a challenge that calls for serious science, serious action – and serious money
The Guardian, Wednesday 20 October 2010

Biodiversity: Variety as the spice of life | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian
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This has been the International Year of Biodiversity and a UN gathering in Nagoya, Japan, is getting under way, charged with launching a 10-year strategy to avert the collapse of fisheries, conserve the Amazon rainforest and check the spread of invasive species.

The auguries are not good. A few weeks ago, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature confirmed...

[Staff]

Biodiversity summit must tackle destructive impacts of food production
Nagoya delegates need to plan how the world achieves food security, before ecosystems reach critical tipping points
* Janet Ranganathan and Frances Irwin
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 October 2010 12.38 BST

Biodiversity summit must tackle destructive impacts of food production | Janet Ranganathan and Frances Irwin | Environment | guardian.co.uk
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While producing food relies on harvesting nature's bounty, food production often degrades the very ecosystems it depends on. The Brazilian Amazon, for example, provides critical water and climate regulation services that the region's agricultural sector depends upon for its survival. Yet one-fifth of the Brazilian Amazon has been deforested, primarily by farmers and ranchers.

Delegates at the conference face a paradox. Dramatic increases in food production over the past 50 years have supported significant improvements in human wellbeing, but at the same time have diminished Earth's diversity and capacity to provide ecosystem services (including fish, food, freshwater, pollination, and water regulation)...

[Staff]

Critical biodiversity conference opens in Japan
Biodiversity | 18.10.2010
Author: Sean Sinico (Reuters, AFP)

Editor: Nathan Witkop
Critical biodiversity conference opens in Japan | Environment & Development | Deutsche Welle | 18.10.2010
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In addition to new goals, the conference will also address the implementation of to a top-level panel to provide policymakers with scientific assessments of biodiversity - similar to those provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Called IPBES, or Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the institution would put a value on the Earth's species at the global and regional level.

IPBES' creation, however, came into doubt in September when developing nations pressed rich countries for payments for the use of genetic "patrimony...

[Staff]

Critical biodiversity conference opens in Japan
Biodiversity | 18.10.2010
Author: Sean Sinico (Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Nathan Witkop

Critical biodiversity conference opens in Japan | Environment & Development | Deutsche Welle | 18.10.2010
excerpt from above:

In addition to new goals, the conference will also address the implementation of to a top-level panel to provide policymakers with scientific assessments of biodiversity - similar to those provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Called IPBES, or Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the institution would put a value on the Earth's species at the global and regional level.

IPBES' creation, however, came into doubt in September when developing nations pressed rich countries for payments for the use of genetic "patrimony...

[Staff]

UN conference aims to preserve plants and animals amid onslaught of pollution, exploitation
By MALCOLM FOSTER , Associated Press

Last update: October 17, 2010 - 4:10 AM
UN conference aims to preserve plants and animals amid onslaught of pollution, exploitation | StarTribune.com
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...However, some battle lines have already formed between developed and developing nations over the convention's strategic mission statement — whether to take action to halt or simply slow the loss of biodiversity by 2020 — and finding a way to equitably share the benefits of genetic resources, such as plants native to poor countries that have been converted into lucrative drug products in the West.

[Staff]

Failure Looms for Global Biodiversity Conference
By Christoph Seidler
Copenhagen Repeat?
10/18/2010

Copenhagen Repeat?: Failure Looms for Global Biodiversity Conference - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
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But even now, with the Nagoya conference getting started, it isn't clear if the ABS Protocol would be agreed on. "A central point of conflict is the demand by southern nations for payment based on past profits," Carsten Nesshöver, a geo-ecologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. In other words, industrialized nations would be forced to pay for past sins, in some cases back to colonial times. It is difficult to imagine diplomats from rich countries agreeing to such a treaty.

Should the ABS protocol not be signed, the summit could end up being seen as a complete failure. "In Nagoya, we will be developing a framework for how we live in the future," Beate Jessel, the head of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation said...

[Equilibrium]

I haven’t been following this but it’s looking like the eco-extortion began…. developing countries… like China (go figure) will want the rich US to kick in our fair share so they can meet or exceed their carbon emissions reduction commitments to the UN and they’ll all want retroactive royalties from BigPharma which happens to be a protected “species” in the United States or else…. they’ll all start pinning the biodiversity failure blame on us greedy Americans for tsunamis and floods and fires all caused by global warming with no choice but to continue their slash and burn deforestation practices totally forgetting the amount of land we're chewing up right here in the good ole US growing food for their exploding populations. I think we should help them if they show good faith by "humanely" reducing their population growth to 0 before we’ve got nothing left besides wheat and soy fields because right about then we’ll all get hit with a famine or pandemic of Biblical proportions…. which will get pinned on us greedy Americans anyway so why not take a stance right now and try to turn the tables so we’re in a position to defend ourselves to the “global” community while setting aside some of our lands for future generations.