Biodiversity gets boost

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by Patrick Lejtenyi

An international conference on the preservation of biodiversity held in Montreal last week actually ended on a more upbeat and encouraging note for environiks than was expected. What made the five-day meeting of scientific advisors to the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) a moderate success was the recognition on the parts of many developed nations that primary ancient rainforests were in peril and needed urgent protection. The conference was laying the groundwork for next April's 10th-anniversary conference of the Rio Earth Summit to be held in the Netherlands, and was attended by about 400 delegates, academics and organizations, including the World Bank and the UN, from 115 countries.

But before we start hugging redwoods and cuddling grizzlies, warns Greenpeace Vancouver's Tamara Stark, pressure has to be added to make sure governments don't sweep the issue under the rug. "The conference failed to set out recommendations for concrete targets or a timeline," she says. "Words are nice but they can ultimately be just a motherhood statement." Which means, apparently, an empty one. "By the end of the meeting we had hoped for more clear targets to be identified. If there aren't any [by the 2002 summit], the CBD will not have succeeded."

Interestingly, Stark said Australia, the Netherlands, Russia and the U.S. were the strongest advocates for protection. Those who did not pose a "leadership role," Stark noted, were the countries with the most to lose in terms of biological diversity: Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cameroon. :