Biodiversity in the spotlight

The UN has declared this year as the International Year of Biodiversity. Throughout the year a large number of initiatives are planned worldwide with the aim of raising the importance of the issue for communities around the globe. The year also marks a milestone in the assessment of the world's biodiversity. The initiatives have been supported by the organisation Countdown 200, set up through the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which has worked at government level by monitoring countries' response to the 200 Biodiversity Target, a key component of the Convention on Biological Diversity established 6 years ago. Many researchers believe the Convention on Biological Diversity has had some success in addressing its first two objectives, namely conservation and sustainable use, but there is no doubt there has been alarming reduction in many species across many habitats where the Convention has been less effective. The overall rate of habitat loss, which is the main driver of species loss in terrestrial ecosystems, is increasing but slowing in certain regions, mostly in temperate areas. Rates of habitat loss are projected to continue to increase in tropical areas. There is increasing awareness, however, that if protected areas of particular importance for biodiversity are maintained and developed and if proactive measures are taken to protect threatened species, then the rate of biodiversity loss of targeted habitats and species could be reduced. But this is still a real challenge as so many habitats are being continually degraded by human activity. Two recent events in Europe have aimed to keep the international community focused on biodiversity. In May 2008 Bonn in Germany hosted the last UN biodiversity summit. And later that year, the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) recorded the highest ever attendance with more than 8,000 participants. The latest IUCN Red List — those species facing increasing conservation concern — showed that real progress was not made in reversing the trend of biodiversity loss in the course of 2008. One out of four mammals is on the brink of extinction according to the Red List and similar ratios apply to other species. Biodiversity is still rapidly decreasing. And the Red List has since produced gloomy news for many other species. Many governments and NGOs confirmed the significant need for concrete data on the economic costs of the loss of biological diversity. Pavan Sukhdev, the author of a report of the economics of …