We are experiencing the start of the 6th period of mass extinction in the history of Planet Earth, scientists say. We are facing a biodiversity crisis, losing species 100 to 1000 times faster than the normal background extinction rate. There is no more time to lose if sustainability is our ultimate goal. If we don’t want to experience our Planet’s ecosystem services to collapse things have to change. WE have to change!
During previous periods of mass extinction and ecosystem degradation changes were driven by global changes in climate and in atmospheric chemistry, bolide impacts and volcanism. This time species extinction is a result of interaction and competition for resources with another species — humans. It is mainly caused by habitat degradation, whose effects on biodiversity is worsen by ongoing human-induced climate change.
Therefore, an international science panel for biodiversity was needed according to an editorial in Nature, 3 June 2010. The establishment of such a panel is required to make biodiversity loss, as a real economically significant phenomena, much harder to ignore. Like what the IPCC did for climate change. So, after the United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, it was decided that more focus and attention to biodiversity loss was needed. And on the 21st of December, 2010, the United Nations 65th General Assembly formally resolved to establish an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and January 2011 was declared the beginning of the International Decade on Biodiversity.
The IPBES should create the gold standard for independent scientific assessment on an international level. Provided, of course, that its formal relations with and support by the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Environment Programme and UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization will be sustained. This kind of backing is necessary to get not only conservationists, but also food producers like farmers and fishermen, to stand behind its conclusions. The IPBES should provide focus on standards and infrastructure for biodiversity science and should help to improve and harmonise predictive models of global change.
The work-programme and how to secure the quality of future IPBES assessments reports is currently being discussed around the world. In January this year, the University of Copenhagen hosted a conference with representatives from all European countries aimed to discuss how to address these issues and how to organise the future UN-IPBES. The main conclusion from scientists from University of Copenhagen is that:
Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for the planet. Read more here ….
(Sources: University of Copenhagen News, 19.01.2012; website IPBES)
