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By Ira Karen Apanay, Senior Reporter
THE United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity (Uncbd) is targeting zero deforestation by year 2020, a
visiting top executive of the international agency based in
Montreal, Canada said on Friday.
Uncbd Executive Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf said
that 20 million hectares of forestland in the world is lost because
of deforestation.
Djoghlaf is in the country to discuss
collaboration among the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological
Diversity of the UN, the Asean Centre for Biodiversity and the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources in protecting and
conserving Southeast Asia’s rich but highly threatened
biodiversity.
“I am here to discuss with colleagues in Asean
[Association of Southeast Asian Nations] Centre for Biodiversity the
roadmap for 2010,” Djoghlaf said.
The roadmap will be the plans for the next two
years before the next Conference of Parties in Japan on 2010. He
said the roadmap will be finalized by mid-July.
The Algerian biodiversity expert also said that
“loss of biodiversity is connected to food crisis.”
He explained that main contributor to the food
crisis are the pests in some wheat-producing countries, since the
death of specie affects all the species in an ecosystem.
He added that our grandparents used to rely on
7,000 types of plants, but now most of it is no longer existing.
Under severe threat
Asean center Executive Director Rodrigo Fuentes
said that the rich biodiversity of the Southeast Asian region is in
severe threat that could affect the lives of more than 500 million
people in the region.
Fuentes explained that while the Southeast Asian
region’s rich biodiversity occupies only 3 percent of the
world’s total surface, it accounts for 20 percent of all known
species that live in its mountains, jungles, rivers, lakes and seas.
The total land area of the region is 447 million
hectares, of which 45 percent is covered with forests. The said area
also has over 24,000 islands.
The Philippines along with Indonesia and
Malaysia were listed as three of the world’s 17 megadiversity
countries, Fuentes said.
He further said that the region has seven of the
world’s 25 recognized biodiversity hotspots, and almost of entire
Philippines is included. He added that 80 percent of Southeast
Asia’s coral reefs are at risk due to destructive fishing
practices and coral bleaching.
“If the rate of deforestation continues, the
region will lose up to 3/4 of its forests, and up to 42 percent of
its biodiversity by 2100,” Fuentes said.
Because of this, the Environment department and
Asean cnter are expected to attend the next Conference of Parties in
Nagoya, Japan in 2010, to submit their reports on what they are
doing to contribute to the rehabilitation of the biodiversity.
Djoghlaf stressed that step by step and action
by action, the world can achieve the zero deforestation by 2020
through the cooperation of every member of the Uncbd.
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