KL hosts UN meet on ecosystem protection
KL hosts UN meet on ecosystem protection
Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur
More than 2,000 government officials, scientists and environmental watchdogs will gather in Malaysia for a UN-backed meeting to promote protection for threatened ecosystems and help developing countries share in the wealth created by their native species.
Delegates attending the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will run for nearly two weeks starting on Monday, hope to curb the rate of extinctions spurred by threats such as pollution, overfishing and commercial logging, organizers said.
"The survival of the human species depends on biological diversity," said Hamdallah Zedan, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an offshoot of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that has been ratified by 187 countries and the European Union.
"The services provided by biodiversity are inestimable, and yet ... they are often overlooked, to the point where biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate," Zedan said in a statement. "Without biodiversity, there would be no trees to produce oxygen, no water catchments and no biodegradation, so that organic waste would just accumulate."
The conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, is expected to seek measures to improve global environmental preservation, especially in mountains, forests, oceans and coastal areas, and propose timetables and realistic goals to guide these efforts.
Delegates will also explore the creation of an international framework to help developing nations and indigenous people safeguard their heritage and share in the benefits of commercial use of their natural resources.
Meanwhile, environmentalists say they will urge governments to improve financing and law enforcement to protect forests where poaching and logging are increasingly rampant and marine species and habitats are threatened by overfishing, diving activities and pollution.
Government representatives from at least seven countries - Brazil, Congo, Ecuador, Indonesia, Jamaica, Madagascar and Palau - are expected to announce new agreements with nongovernmental organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund to strengthen their roles in conservation efforts.