Japan to propose declaring 2011-2020 U.N. decade of biodiversity+

TOKYO, May 7 Kyodo -
Japan will propose a resolution at the U.N. General Assembly meeting this
autumn to declare the 10 years through 2020 the U.N. Decade of Biodiversity so
that the international community can intensively work on preserving
biodiversity during the period, Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said
Friday.
''We want to promote the work (on preserving biodiversity) at the United
Nations as a whole, including the United States, which is not party to the
(biodiversity) convention,'' Ozawa said at a news conference.
Tokyo has decided on the move as biological diversity continues to be
threatened worldwide, with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological
Diversity set to conclude in its assessment of the current situation to be
unveiled on Monday that an international target to significantly reduce the
rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has been missed, government officials said.
Prior to making the proposal at the U.N. General Assembly session beginning in
September, Tokyo will propose making such a designation for the next decade,
which would follow the International Year of Biodiversity declared by the world
body for 2010, when it attends a biodiversity-related meeting to be held in
Kenya from Monday, Ozawa said.
It is also considering getting Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to call on other
countries to sign off on the idea at a high-level U.N. meeting on the subject
to be held in September ahead of the resolution's possible adoption at the
assembly meeting, the minister said.
Japan may also seek to get a related resolution adopted at a major U.N.
conference on biodiversity to be held in the Japanese city of Nagoya in
October, according to the officials.
Countries are expected to adopt new targets, including numerical ones to be
achieved by 2020, at the upcoming 10th Conference of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, and a major issue is how
countries can beef up efforts to preserve biodiversity.
The idea of declaring the 2011-2020 period the biodiversity decade to promote
such efforts was originally proposed by the Japan Civil Network for Convention
on Biological Diversity to the government.
The non-governmental organization made up of environmental groups in Japan,
argues that unless something more is done by the international community,
biological diversity would be lost to an irreparable degree, and that intensive
efforts during the next 10 years would help curtail a further loss in
biological diversity.
==Kyodo
2010-05-07 23:23:42


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