More Discussions
Necessary on Requirement for an Intergovernmental Scientific
Body for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Putrajaya/Nairobi, 12 November 2008
- Close to 100 nations concluded a review of how science
can better guide policy by examining the merits of a new
scientific body able to put the loss of biodiversity,
ecosystems and their multi-trillion dollar services at
the top of the political agenda.
Recommendations on the final day included
one to carry out a preliminary ‘gap analysis’ on where
the link between scientists and those that make policy
decisions at a national, regional and global level might
be strengthened and for the Executive Director of the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to present toe outcome
of this week to UNEP’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum - the big gathering of environment ministers
scheduled for mid-February 2009.
The meeting also recommended that the
UNEP Governing Council “requests the Executive Director
to “convene a second Intergovernmental Multi-stakeholder
Meeting on an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform
on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.”
And added:” With the view to strengthening
and improving the science-policy interface for biodiversity
and ecosystem services for human well-being, including
consideration of a new science-policy platform.
The nations, gathering over three days
in the Malaysian city of Putrajaya, were weighing the
effectiveness of existing mechanisms to translate science
into policy- action by governments including the merits
of establishing an Intergovernmental Panel or Platform
on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES.
It reflects growing concern that the
current international response is failing to galvanize
a real and meaningful response to the decline of the globe’s
economically important natural or nature-based assets
from species and soils to forests and fisheries.
The failure is in part as a result of a fragmented landscape
of reports and assessments by a multitude of organizations
each coming to the issue from different approaches and
with different methods.
“The end result is that a policy-makers
lack the validated, coherent and actionable guide to what
is the most sensible tack for turning around biodiversity
loss and ecosystem degradation,” said Achim Steiner, Executive
Director of the UN Environment Programme which convened
the Malaysia meeting.
“An intergovernmental body, perhaps
mirroring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
which has put global warming high on the political radar,
is one of the options that represents a possible way forward,”
he added.
“One thing that was not in doubt here
was an overwhelming acceptance that business and usual
is unlikely to stem the tide of decline of the Earth’s
natural world and natural assets and that some kind of
urgent response is long overdue - that a transition to
a Green Economy must put scientific and sustainable use
of these resources amongst the top political priorities,”
said Mr Steiner.
The nations meeting in Malaysia today
requested a ‘gaps’ report aimed at pin pointing where
the problems in the current response to biodiversity and
ecosystem decline actually rest.
Some of those could include the current
gaps in knowledge on the precise link between biodiversity,
healthy ecosystems and thus livelihoods.
In other words how many species can
disappear from a forest or fertile soils before they collapse
or become ever less productive?
Meanwhile many experts believe that
an intergovernmental panel or platform could provide early
warning of biologically-related developments of regional
or global significance years in advance of their public
emergence.
Some experts cite the case of biofuels,
an area that has triggered fierce and polarized public
debate in recent months. The issues surrounding biofuels
or certain kinds of biofuels have been known to scientists
for several decades, but only now are hitting the headlines.
Similar arguments can be made for the
disappearance of amphibians as a result of viruses or
perhaps climate change and for acidification of the oceans
and loss of coral reefs as a result of the build up of
C02 in the atmosphere and the seas.
Others believe that some of the greatest
‘gaps’ exist in developing countries where there is an
urgent and practical need to strengthen the knowledge,
skills and capacity to carry out biodiversity and ecosystem
assessments in the first place.
Nations this week requested that such
a gaps analysis, able to demonstrate the need or otherwise
of an international panel or some other mechanism, should
be presented before a global gathering of the world’s
environment ministers.
The meeting - UNEP’s Governing Council/Global
Ministerial Environment Forum- is scheduled to take place
in Nairobi, Kenya in mid-February 2009.
Notes to Editors
Documents for the meeting, which ran from 10 to 12 November
at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre, can
be found at http://www.ipbes.net/en/index.aspx
UNEP Global Environment Outlook-4 http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx
UNEP Green Economy Initiative http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/
Nick Nuttall, UNEP
