Global meeting aims to protect species on the brink

Marseille, Sept 3 (AFP/APP):The world’s leading global conservation congress opened on Friday, with warnings that humanity must tackle the grave risks of biodiversity loss and climate change together.

The key message from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is that disappearing species and the destruction of ecosystems are no less existential threats than global warming.

“The battle for the climate — against climate change — is twinned with the battle to preserve and restore biodiversity,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a speech at the opening ceremony in the French port city of Marseille.

But efforts to stem the losses of the world’s wildlife had fallen behind, he warned.

How to reverse relentless habitat destruction, unsustainable agriculture, mining and a warming planet will dominate discussion during the conference.

“We are facing huge challenges. We are seeing the climate changing and impacting hugely our societies,” said IUCN chief Bruno Oberle in a speech before the congress opened.

“We are seeing biodiversity disappearing and the pandemic hitting our economies, our families, our health.”

The meeting, delayed from 2020 by the pandemic, comes ahead of crucial UN summits on climate, food systems and biodiversity that could shape the planet’s foreseeable future.

Previous IUCN congresses have paved the way for global treaties on biodiversity and the international trade in endangered species.

But efforts to halt extensive declines in numbers and diversity of animals and plants have so far failed to slow the destruction.

In 2019 the UN’s biodiversity experts warned that a million species are on the brink of extinction — raising the spectre that the planet is on the verge of its sixth mass extinction event in 500 million years.

Protesters in Marseille, with banners that read “Nature is not for sale!” and “Change the system not the climate!”, urged more urgent action.

“It’s hard to read the headlines: floods, fires, famines, plagues and tell your children that everything is alright,” said actor Harrison Ford, who has become a vocal environmental campaigner, the opening ceremony.

“It’s not alright. Dammit, it’s not alright!”