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International Day for Biological Diversity
An occasion to
find out the current state of science on
biodiversity loss |
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Brussels, 18.05.2006.
In time for the 22 May 2006, which is the
International Day for Biological Diversity,
GreenFacts has published a popularised version of
the Millennium Assessment Report on Biodiversity. It
is available at
www.greenfacts.org/biodiversity/ in English, and
soon also in French, Dutch and Spanish. The summary
was produced in partnership with IUCN (the World
Conservation Union), Countdown 2010 and UNEP World
Conservation Monitoring Centre.
This year’s International Day for Biological
Diversity marks the 16th anniversary of
the adoption of the Convention on Biological
Diversity. According to this Convention,
Biodiversity – the number, variety, and variability
of living organisms – is not just about plants,
animals, microorganisms and their ecosystems, but
also about humans and their needs such as food
security, clean air and water, as well as a healthy
environment.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was
launched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001
to provide scientific information concerning the
consequences of ecosystem change for human
well-being and options for responding to those
changes. It involved over 1300 scientists from 95
countries and produced a series of assessment
reports.
"Only by understanding the environment and how it
works, can we make the necessary decisions to
protect it," said Kofi Annan in a message launching
the MA reports. "The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
is an unprecedented contribution to our global
mission for development, sustainability and peace."
The Biodiversity Synthesis Report is one of several
thematic synthesis reports published by the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. A popularised
version of the overarching synthesis report
“Ecosystems and Human Well-being" has also been
published by GreenFacts at
www.greenfacts.org/ecosystems/. |
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04-23-2005
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
- Earth to George
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Alexis Simendinger (Email
this author)
© National Journal Group, Inc.
During this week, which marked the 35th anniversary
of Earth Day, President Bush touted his
controversial energy legislation, and visited the
ozone-clouded Great Smoky Mountains National Park in
Tennessee to call attention to his stalled "Clear
Skies Initiative."
It's no secret that advocacy groups, and most
Americans responding to polls, find plenty to
criticize about Bush's environmental approach. With
Earth Day in mind,
National Journal
asked some environmental watchdogs to suggest how
the president could walk the talk he used in a 2002
speech on global warming, when he declared: "Wise
action now is an insurance policy against future
risks."
"This year is a particularly opportune time to do
something on the oceans," said Roger Rufe, president
and chief executive officer of the Ocean
Conservancy. Rufe recently met with White House
Chief of Staff Andy Card and Council on
Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton to
encourage the president's advisers to envision a
legacy for Bush as "the Teddy Roosevelt for the
oceans." Rufe's group wants Bush to transform the
remote and uninhabited northwestern Hawaiian Islands
from their current status as a marine preserve into
a nationalmarine sanctuary, a designation that would
protect the islands from future development. By such
executive action, Bush could protect 70 percent of
the coral found in the United States, Rufe said, and
create the second-largest such area in the world,
next to Australia's Great Barrier Reef. "This is a
once-in-a-generation opportunity," he added.
Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, also
had the oceans in mind -- specifically, the loss of
fish that is jeopardizing the ecosystem. "We're
hoping to work with the administration to allow
fishermen in communities that want to solve their
overfishing problems to use a catch-share approach,"
he said, setting catch allocations for fishermen so
that fish populations can rebound to provide future
profit potential. "It's got to be put into place by
government, and that's why the president's
leadership is important," Krupp said. "The National
Marine Fisheries Service and the Department of
Commerce should work with the [eight] regional
fishery management councils, which are interested in
the new market-based approach."
The Teddy Roosevelt model is a favorite of the
Wilderness Society, too. "We want to encourage the
administration to really think about Teddy Roosevelt
and that idea, that legacy: You don't use it all
now. You save something for later," said Linda
Lance, the group's vice president for public policy.
The Wilderness Society wants Bush to lead the
GOP-controlled Congress (not his usual M.O. on this
topic) toward enactment of pending legislation to
designate federal "wilderness land" under the 1964
Wilderness Act, preserving pristine areas in their
natural condition -- meaning no roads or cars. To
date, Congress has granted that designation to 105
million acres of public land, and the group wants to
see another 200 million acres similarly protected
(half of those 200 million acres are in Alaska,
particularly in parts of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge and the Chugach and Tongass national
forests). The group also urges the president to
break ranks with predecessors George H.W. Bush,
Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon, who declined to
use their prerogative to preserve federal lands as
national monuments under the 1906 American
Antiquities Act.
The National Recycling Coalition wants Bush to put
his megaphone and dollars behind the Transportation
Department, which backs the use of industrial
byproducts and consumer recyclables in
road-building, in landscaping, and in constructing
highway rest stops. "The president could show great
leadership and recognition of programs that were in
place, but due to budget cuts, have been lost," said
Kate Krebs, the coalition's executive director.
Natural Resources Defense Council experts
highlighted sewage policy, global warming, and
global environmental security among priorities for
presidential action. Specifically, they want Bush to
drop a proposed Environmental Protection Agency
policy that would allow the 20,000 sewage treatment
plants in the country to dilute rainwater with fully
treated sewage before discharging it during large
storms. "We want the administration to enforce the
existing regulations that have been in place since
Ronald Reagan was president," said Nancy Stoner,
NRDC's Clean Water Project director.
David Doniger, director of policy for the NRDC
Climate Center, urges the president "to help the
business community plan to make a logical move into
a carbon-constrained world, and help them do that
with mandatory limits, even if they are modest." In
tandem, Doniger calls for government incentives to
employ new technologies for carbon-free, coal-fired
power plants, and for automakers and their suppliers
to retool America's vehicle fleets. "Those actions
would actually help spur a renaissance for both of
those industries," Doniger argued.
Shannon Heyck-Williams, director of NRDC's Earth
Legacy Campaign, encourages Bush to work with
Congress to create an independent, bipartisan panel
to recommend policies on global environmental
security. NRDC tells Republican lawmakers that such
a commission could help the U.S. lead rather than
lag when it comes to threats of petroleum and water
scarcity, and to the potential economic and
migratory effects on populations sparked by changes
to the Earth's climate. "It matters what's happening
around the world," Heyck-Williams said, "because,
ultimately, everything will affect us."
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Jacob
Scherr, Earth Legacy Co-Chair, 202-289-2367
INTERNATIONAL
STUDY SUPPORTS EARTH LEGACY CALL FOR U.S. COMMISSION ON GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS
URGENT ACTION
NEEDED TO PROTECT GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT, NEW REPORT SAYS
WASHINGTON
(March 30, 2005)--A new report released today on the threatened
status of the world’s ecosystems should prompt the United States
to take concrete action, the Earth Legacy Campaign said. The
four-year, $20 million study--the most comprehensive look at the
health of the world’s ocean, land, forests and
species--concluded that many of the world’s ecosystems are
headed for collapse unless radical measures are implemented to
revive them.
"The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is an extraordinary warning from
more than a thousand scientists around the world that our
natural resources are in deep trouble, and we cannot afford to
continue business as usual," Jacob Scherr, director of the
International Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council
and Co-Chair of the Earth Legacy Campaign. "The report should be
a wake-up call for the United States. If we don’t provide world
leadership, the well-being of our children and grandchildren
will be threatened."
The campaign
specifically called on the U.S. Congress to create an
independent national commission to review recent scientific
studies, determine the potential impact of global change, and
make recommendations for U.S. actions to ensure a sustainable
future. (For more information on the Earth Legacy campaign and
coalition of civil society organizations, go to
www.earthlegacy.org.)
"Americans
have the most to lose from global environmental decline, and the
most to contribute to finding solutions to the challenges we
face," said Scherr.
The Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, which involved more than 1,300 scientists
from 95 countries, was released today by the United Nations
Environment Program and several public and private
organizations, including the World Resources Institute. The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is available online at
www.millenniumassessment.org. A review of its major findings is
available at
http://www.greenfacts.org/ecosystems/.
The report
found that over the last 50 years, human actions have depleted
the Earth’s natural resources at an unprecedented scale and rate
to satisfy growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber,
and fuel. For example, more land has been converted to crop land
since World War II than in the previous two centuries. The
result has been a tremendous increase in wealth and well-being,
but a billion people still live in grinding poverty.
The scientists
found that human actions have significantly reduced the
diversity of life around the world. More than 20 percent of the
world’s coral reefs and 35 percent of the mangroves have been
lost in the last several decades. As much 30 percent of all
bird, mammal and amphibian species now are threatened with
extinction.
Today, more
than half of the critical services provided by ecosystems are
being degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water,
fisheries, air and water purification, and erosion control. We
now face the potential for the rapid emergence of new diseases,
"dead zones" in coastal waters, more frequent and damaging
floods and fires, and regional climate changes. The continued
decline of ecosystems will make it all the more difficult to
lift people out of poverty and could result in greater social
conflict.
The study
warns that the depletion of natural ecosystem services will
continue as the world’s population continues to grow and
economic activity expands as much as six-fold. The scientists
warn that climate change and the increased loading of nutrients
into the environment--principally nitrogen used in
fertilizers--will worsen over the next 50 years and could
further undercut essential ecosystem services.
The Earth
Legacy Campaign
is a collaboration of a diverse group of civil society
organizations seeking to restore U.S. leadership in the
protection of the global environment. It is Co-Chaired by the
Natural Resources Defense Council,
www.nrdc.org, and the Coalition for American Leadership
Abroad,
www.colead.org, who are working with partners to advance
commission legislation in the U.S. Congress and increase the
visibility of global environmental issues in the ongoing
national debate about the future of our nation.
________________________________________________________________________
New U.Va. group hosts
town meeting: Former Assistant Secretary General of the United
Nations addressed global environment
by Jenny Hernandez
Cavalier Daily
March 23. 2005
Caption: The town hall meeting focused on the effects that
global policies could have in the international community. The
new group seeks to promote awareness of other nations.
Last night a new non-partisan student organization, Americans
for Informed Democracy (AID), hosted a town-hall meeting titled
"U.S. Security and the Global Environment." The presentation was
held in the Garden Room at the U.Va. Colonnade and focused on
the effects that the U.S.'s global environment policies could
have in the international arena.
Featuring William Mansfield, the former Assistant Secretary
General of the United Nations, and Jacob Scherr, the Director of
International Programs for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, the event addressed issues such as the impact of global
environment trends in U.S. security and the effectiveness of
current U.S. procedure to protect the global environment.
"It is important that one of [the U.S.'s] primary goals should
be the environment, not only because it's a vital resource, but
because it will affect how we are seen in the world and hence
our global security," said Kitty Ganier, co-president of the
University chapter of AID.
Ganier said the global environment and other current
international issues such as the war in Iraq and Aids in Africa
are all interrelated issues when it comes to outside
perspectives of the United States.
Promoting U.S. consciousness of external international views of
the nation is the ultimate purpose of AID, Ganier said. Events
such as last night's town hall are part of the AID initiative,
"Red, White, and Blue Coming Together." The initiative is a
response to the heightened political divisions created after an
intense presidential election. "Red, White, and Blue," seeks to
demonstrate that significant common ground exists in a number of
key foreign policy areas.
AID is a national organization that was started in 2001 by two
American university students studying at Oxford, Ganier said.
The students realized most American university students did not
know how the United States was viewed in the world and set out
to start a program to educate them.
This is the inaugural year for the University chapter of AID,
which is also headed by co-president, Jasdeep Ghumann. Ganier
and Ghumann are both foreign affairs majors who attended an AID
retreat last summer and were motivated to bring AID's mission to
the University. Yesterday's presentation is the second event put
on by the chapter -- the first event was hosted in October and
was titled "Hope, Not Hate."
"Our biggest goal is to inform and educate," Ghumann said.
Ganier and Ghumann agreed their main purpose is to get people
out and interested in issues that affect them.
"Events such as these are part of the amazing wealth of
knowledge the university has to offer," Ganier said. "It is my
hope that they will inspire and motivate students to understand
they can make a change in the world."
____________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Harry
Blaney (202) 944-5519; Mark Epstein (cell) 202-550-4258
Earth Legacy Campaign Launched At World Environment Day
Celebration In San Francisco
- Leading Environmental and Foreign Policy Experts Call
for Creation of a New U.S. Commission to Address Global
Environmental Deterioration
SAN FRANCISCO (June 4, 2004) – Citing the growing
deterioration of the environment around the world and the
decline of U.S. global leadership, a non-partisan group of
environmental and foreign policy luminaries today joined with
leading non-governmental organizations to announce the Earth
Legacy Campaign.
The centerpiece of the campaign is a call for Congress to
reassert U.S. global environmental leadership by establishing a
commission to review the state of the global environment, its
effect on U.S. interests, and current efforts to protect it.
The Earth Legacy campaign will be announced during a luncheon in
San Francisco where Mayor Gavin Newsom and the United Nations
will launch plans for a major celebration of World Environment
Day on June 5, 2005, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the United Nations there.
Among the growing list of former top government officials and
ambassadors, leading scientists, and other distinguished experts
signing onto the Earth Legacy declaration are Russell Train, who
served during the Nixon administration as the first chairman of
the president’s Council on Environmental Quality and later the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Gus
Speth, CEQ chairman under President Carter and currently dean of
Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. See
attached Declaration.
The declaration states in part: “World population expected to
grow from 6 to 9 billion by mid-century, spreading
industrialization, increasing urbanization, and rising
consumption are creating enormous pressures on the air, water,
and land of our small planet… Without urgent action to reverse
current trends, the degradation of the Earth’s environment will
undermine our public health, national security, and economic
interests…We need a new consensus and foundation upon which to
build a renewed U.S. commitment to protect the global
environment.”
The Earth Legacy campaign is being launched by a coalition of 19
environmental and foreign affairs groups (list attached) and
co-chaired by Jacob Scherr, director of the International
Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harry
Blaney, president of the Coalition for American Leadership
Abroad. For more information about the campaign, see
www.earthlegacy.org.
“The dramatic decline in U.S. leadership on global environmental
issues is not only an environmental issue, but it is now clearly
an acute concern for the foreign policy community,” said Mr.
Blaney. Mr. Scherr added that “the goal of the campaign is to
stimulate a national discussion about what sort of planet we
want to leave to our kids.” Speaking for Earth Legacy at the San
Francisco event, Mark Epstein, Deputy Director of Physicians for
Social Responsibility, said that “the need to re-examine our
nation’s role in protecting the global environment has never
been more urgent.”
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