Biodiversity Agreement for Injury

1995/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ekologia

One of the most brilliant consequences of the Rio de Janeiro Summit, the Biodiversity Convention, is bankrupt following the first meeting of the Convention in Bahamas in early December 1994, of the 133 signatories to the Convention.

After 30 months of the signing of the Convention by most governments of the world, only a dozen states have organized their national plan to protect their biodiversity. This was one of the most important points of the Convention. On the other hand, the main objective of the Bahamas meeting was to establish measures to protect the species of the world. However, the problems of forests and forests have not been discussed and that is a great nonsense, because in them lives half of the living species of the world.

Moreover, after 12 days in Nassau, they could not agree on where to locate the secretariat of the Convention. There were three candidates: Geneva (provisional headquarters), Madrid and Nairobi, but apparently they were not to the liking of Congress. On the other hand, the implementation of new procedures for safe handling and transport of genetically modified organisms has been delayed for a year.

One of the points agreed at the meeting is the creation of a subcommittee on scientific and technical advice on conservation. However, this sub-committee will hold its first meeting next September.

One of the “big” decisions is the annual designation of 29 December as International Biodiversity Day.

Representatives of the conservation institutions left the meeting very angry, especially because the problem of forests was not affected. The forest problem will be addressed at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development meeting this year. The Commission is a consequence of the Rio Summit, but its decisions do not legally bind the Convention.

Currently, the GMO is working on the implementation of the new UN Forest Policy. However, Malaysia and Canada have the coordination of this work and, according to conservationists, these two states use a wild forest policy. Therefore, the fear of conservationists is that the committees put forestry to biodiversity.

From the Rio Summit it is estimated that between 40,000 and 80,000 hectares of forests have disappeared, as seen.