23 May 2008: Delegates to the ninth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, meeting in Bonn, Germany, considered the CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological (SBSTTA) recommendations on biodiversity and climate change (recommendations XII/5 and XIII/6) on Friday, 23 May 2008. The following is a summary of the deliberations as provided by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
15 May 2008: The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have agreed to strengthen their cooperation and co-financing to support strategic development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
20 May: At a side event held during the ninth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Bonn, Germany, the European Commission presented its Natura 2000 network of conservation areas established to protect natural habitats.
Photo: L-R: Oliver Schweiger, Heimholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Astrid Kaemena, European Commission, Karin Zaunberger, European Commission.
May 2008: Organized jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, the International Forest Adaptation 2008 Conference will take place in Umeå, Sweden, from 25-28 August 2008.
13 May 2008: The UN’s “Billion Tree Campaign,” a grassroots campaign to plant trees around the globe, recently announced it has raised its target from one billion to seven billion trees. The campaign was launched in 2006 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) as a response to the threat of global warming and other sustainability challenges related to biodiversity loss and water supply. Since its launch, the campaign has resulted in the planting of two billion trees, over half of which have been planted in African countries.
13 May 2008: Japan will host the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting from 24-26 May 2008, in Kobe, Japan.
11 May 2008: Celebrated on 10-11 May 2008, World Migratory Bird Day 2008, organized under the auspices of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), sent a “clear signal to world leaders that more needs to be done to halt the loss of biodiversity and to increase national and international efforts to protect the network of sites required by migratory birds.” Although the exact reasons for the global declines are complex and vary from species to species and from flyway to flyway, the overall decline in bird numbers may be linked to the loss of habitats and biodiversity worldwide. The loss and fragmentation of essential habitats is being further compounded by the effects of climate change.
2 May 2008: The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) held an international expert meeting on the role of sustainable management of tropical forests in climate change adaptation and mitigation from 30 April- 2 May 2008, in Yokohama, Japan. Participants reviewed the potential of sustainable forest management to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, explored existing and possible future schemes to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) and other mitigation options in the forest sector, and made recommendations for future action.
2 May 2008: Participants to the Second meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction have addressed the issue of environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities. A number of developing countries at the 28 April-2 May 2008 meeting in New York, US, organized by the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, expressed concern with ocean-based climate change mitigation activities, highlighting uncertainties regarding their impacts.
Norway, Australia, Marshall Islands and Mexico argued that these activities should be subject to the carrying out of an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Above - L-R: Co-Chair Ambassador Robert Hill (Australia) and Co-Chair Juan Manuel Gómez-Robledo (Mexico).
24 April 2008: According to a new book, a new generation of medical treatments may be lost unless the current rate of biodiversity loss is reversed. The book, Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, was supported by UNEP, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Development Programme and IUCN, and was edited and written by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, from Harvard Medical School, along with more than 100 contributing scientists.
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