Biodiversity is the future: Emil Salim

Biodiversity is the future: Emil Salim

JAKARTA (JP): A two-day biodiversity conference with almost
500 participants should increase awareness in Indonesia about the
need to expend more effort on conservation rather than
consumption, an official said yesterday.

"The future is in biodiversity," said economist and former
environment minister Emil Salim. "If we can sustain our natural
resources by the year 2020, we will be the king of the world."

Indonesia ranks among the world's top five in the world in
biodiversity, he said.

When the world's population of eight billion are all aiming to
change nature into industrial and residential sites, Indonesians
"will have the competitive edge for survival," he said.

Emil is chairman of the Kehati Foundation which hosts the
Global Biodiversity Forum of international conservation groups.
It opens today at Hotel Indonesia.

The talks follow-up the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. Co-hosted
by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, it ends on
Sunday evening.

Some 470 participants hope to contribute their views to the
inter-governmental Second Conference of Parties on the Convention
of Biodiversity, to be held between Nov. 6 and 17 in Jakarta.

Jeffrey McNeely of the IUCN said the informal talks are
expected to "find ways to spend some of the US$1 trillion a year
worldwide on sustaining natural resources, not depleting them."

He was citing environmentalists' estimates that $1 trillion is
spent annually to deplete natural resources.

Emil said today's meeting is vital to make the private sector
more aware of the biodiversity investment opportunities.

While many companies have entered the waste treatment
business, few are interested in cultivating natural resources,
said Emil.

"I only wish we had many bright people who would go into
(remote) areas and ask the local people about their knowledge and
cultivate that knowledge (scientifically)," he said.

Compared to foreign researchers, Indonesians are still "lousy"
and hesitant to enter areas full of mosquitoes or difficult to
reach, he said.

McNeely said that although governments expressed their
commitment to sustainability at the Earth Summit, "no one really
knows how to go about it."

This, said Emil, a former economic advisor to the government,
is because biodiversity is far outside of mainstream economic
thinking. (anr)