World s Forgotten Fishes Vital For Hundreds Of Millions Of People But1/3 Face Extinction, Warns New Report scoop.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scoop.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Global leaders pledge to protect nature at the UN Biodiversity Summit
The world s biodiversity is in a more precarious state than ever before. (Photo: Getty Images)Premium
2 min read
Share Via
Read Full Story
“Humanity is waging a war against nature, said the UN Secretary General António Guterres during his opening remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Summit on 30 September. That is the unalloyed truth, as recent reports on the state of the planet’s biodiversity have borne out. We have also seen this play out in real time, with the annual cataclysmic fires in California, the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic Circle. As world leaders gathered by video conferencing to pledge to protect nature, and look forward to the UN Biodiversity Conference to be held in Kunming, China, in May 2021, the message on the state of the world was quite dire.
Posted:
February 18, 2021
Wildsight joins call to end single-use products
As government representatives from 193 member states prepare to discuss ‘Strengthening Actions for Nature,’ 188 environmental groups from around the world, including East Kootenay-based Wildsight, are calling on them to change the systems that support production of polluting single-use products.
The environmental groups today issued a joint position paper “From Single Use to Systems Change,” to highlight the massive impact that disposable products are having on the natural environment, wildlife, human health, and vulnerable communities.
Single use products, from packaging to food containers, to disposable cups and cutlery, are a key contributor to the two billion tonnes of waste that humans produce every year. That number is projected to increase 70% by 2050.
Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
An ambitious international agreement to protect biodiversity is within reach - but if it is to succeed, business and civil society must play their part, alongside governments
The crisis facing nature has never been more apparent. The costs to mankind of our degradation of the natural world have never been more evident. Fortunately, the beginnings of a meaningful response – in the form of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework – is close at hand.
But, for that framework to succeed, governments must ensure broad participation in its formal processes. Non-state actors – sub-national governments, business and the financial sector, academia, civil society, youth and indigenous peoples and local communities – have a critical role to play in delivering biodiversity outcomes.
By Robert J. Burrowes
In August 2010, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, warned that ‘We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate.’ According to the UN Environment Program, ‘the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life’ with scientists estimating that ‘150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours’ which is nearly 1,000 times the ‘natural’ or ‘background’ rate.
Robert J. Burrowes
Moreover, it ‘is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.’ See ‘Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity chief’.