Foreign and European Policy

UN Convention on Biological Diversity 2008 in Bonn: It's about our future

From May 19th to May 30th the city of Bonn is the venue for the largest-ever environmental conference to be held in Germany. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity will attract a broad spectrum of around 5,000 delegates to the Rhine, including representatives from states, governments and from non-governmental organisations along with economic observers.

The gathering will address one of the key environmental issues of our age, namely the conservation of biological diversity and ways to ensure a sustainable use of the earth's resources.

Germany is hosting this forum as part of efforts to counteract the ongoing destruction of nature and species. The conference is chaired by the Federal Environmental Ministry, and both Federal President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to be present at the two-week event which takes place at the UN Campus in Bonn.

The conference is known officially as the 9th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This agreement was signed by delegates of the international community at the World Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Together with the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention to Combat Desertification and the Effects of Drought, the CBD is one of the three key environmental protection agreements under international law which were passed at the Earth Summit in Rio.

Alongside climate protection, for which legally binding agreements already exist (Kyoto Protocol), conserving biological diversity is seen as the second most important global challenge of the coming decades.

The aim set out in Rio and at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002) was to "significantly slow down" the loss of biodiversity.

Experts warn that the implications of biodiversity loss are every bit as drastic as those of global warming and could threaten the very existence of life on earth. Forests with a high level of biodiversity are particularly affected and the exploitation of the oceans continues unabated. The conference will also be presented with the first part of an international study on the global economic cost of environmental destruction.

The loss of biodiversity threatens both national and numerous economic interests. The issue here is not only protection but the definition of what is permissible usage and access to genetic data as well as how to share the benefits fairly. At the same time, indigenous peoples must be respected in order to combat "bio-piracy" such as the harvesting of medicinal herbs by western countries for use in drug manufacture without ensuring that local inhabitants profit from such utilisation.

Bonn will stage the last large CBD conference before the target year of 2010 and the event is therefore of particular significance. So far the post-Rio conferences have failed to get to grips with these highly complex issues. There is also no international legal framework for them to fall back on, unlike in the case of climate protection. This has prompted German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to issue an urgent call for progress to be made. "The CBD is at a crossroads. In Bonn we must demonstrate that there is movement and not just stagnation."

Source: dpa ba tl mb