Keynote speech: Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director
“Some believe that the current world focus on climate change is drawing attention away from biodiversity issues; I would like to challenge this myth,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, on Monday afternoon, during the High Level Conference on Business and Biodiversity, in Lisbon, Portugal. He noted that people in both hemispheres are becoming increasingly aware of climate change and its impacts on the environment. Drawing on the press coverage received by the recent fourth Global Environment Outlook report, he underscored that society is sensitized to its ecological footprint and concerned with the downwards trend of biodiversity.
Steiner highlighted that markets drive product innovation and that some “environmentally-friendly” markets, such as for organic produce, had taken off in the past five years, illustrating consumer’s will to choose. He further opposed the notion that man can always artificially produce what is found in nature. With a backdrop of increasing oil and grain prices, he wondered about the long-term viability of industries faced with resource shortages.
Drawing attention to the many instruments, policies, rules and regulations pertaining to biodiversity, he noted that the Countdown 2010 initiative had responded to a thirst for simplicity and that the European Initiative on Business and Biodiversity could place biodiversity centre stage.
As four priority areas for future work, he defined:
- milestones that break down the bigger problem of biodiversity loss and enable people to contribute;
- the concept of “net biodiversity loss”;
- no-go areas; and
- access and benefit sharing.
He concluded that “not having perfect knowledge of biodiversity is not a reason not to act.”
