Are countries doing enough?: Countdown 2010 Readiness Assessment
8 October 2008, Barcelona (Spain) The G8+5 countries show medium to low performance in achieving the 2010 biodiversity target. This is one of the results of the Countdown 2010 Readiness Assessment presented today at IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona. Last year the countries promised to increase their efforts to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010.
The Countdown 2010 Readiness Assessment measures countries’ responses in terms of efforts taken within the environment sector, as well as national policies to integrate biodiversity concerns and awareness raising across sectors and decision making processes. “In 2002 countries committed to save biodiversity by 2010. It is now our duty to verify if they are making progress on their commitment” said Sebastian Winkler, Head of Countdown 2010 “The Readiness Assessment is an invaluable contribution to overall research on countries’ performances. It complements other ongoing studies such as the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, the Global Biodiversity Outlook and SEBI2010”.
The report presents an interim status report on the 2010 biodiversity target in the G8 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, Countdown 2010 analyses the five mega-diverse countries connected to the G8 process as emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. The analysis of national reports to biodiversity related conventions shows countries are not progressing fast with regard to establishing targets, identifying indicators and undertaking biodiversity monitoring and reporting the results. However, there are some good examples of well coordinated national biodiversity networks in Canada, Germany, Japan and France. “Countries are not doing enough. We need to once more remind governments of the necessary actions to be taken to reach the target” stated Gordon Shepherd, WWF International and when addressing the causes for biodiversity loss he added “Increased cooperation is key to stop global threats, such as the illegal trading of biodiversity components. Asian countries are the mostly affected”.
The impacts of living modified organisms on ecosystems and biodiversity are not sufficiently assessed. The integration of biodiversity into policies and programmes of other sectors is highly insignificant in almost all the countries. General project level impact assessment also needs to be strengthened in terms of biodiversity integration. There are some positive trends with regard to conservation of forest areas, using forest certification as a tool in some countries, with Germany providing a good example. Policies for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices are well established in some countries like USA, however policies are largely lacking in some others.
“Joint efforts are still needed to integrate biodiversity and climate change policies. 84% of the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans contain no strategic objectives or activities related to climate change adaptation” pointed out Ahmed Djoghlaf from the Convention on Biological Diversity. According to the study there are several research initiatives taken by the countries to understand the dynamics of climate change and biodiversity. However, in most circumstances this still remains a challenge.
Biodiversity awareness is among the top priority for countries like Japan, Canada and UK, and the European Union. However, there is need to make the public more aware of the values of habitat and genetic diversity, and sustainable use of the existing resources. Implementation of the global biodiversity conventions still receives a low priority, as is evident from the fact that some countries are still not a party to some of the important biodiversity related conventions, and there is a major delay in submission of annual reports to some other conventions. Though the funds for biodiversity conservation programmes are on increase in the development cooperation of the developed countries like USA and Germany, as well as at the national level, the amount of funding needs to be enhanced if we are to save biodiversity by 2010.
