Nagoya Biodiversity Ministerial Sessions focused on a voluntary partnership covering nearly 70 nations to boost a United Nations backed scheme that seeks to reward developing countries that preserve and restore forests. Of course it ended up badly…
Called REDD-plus, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, the scheme has attracted funding pledges from rich nations because of its potential to fight climate change. It could also underpin a global market in carbon credits, in which poorer nations could earn large sums by saving their forests. And as expected the partnership has had a troubled start, with the expected unavailability of financial resources by the rich/bancrupt economies, their lack of candor in admitting this, the fertile imagination of the developing world countries about mountaisn of gold sitting waiting someplace, and even silly disputes over the management of the imaginary cash and lawyerly procedural issues. And all this, because the US delegation wants to repatriate the imaginary future cash to Washington to be managed by none other than the climate thieves of World Bank…
”Still the main task for this meeting was to re-establish the partnership, which was close to failure. I think that was obviously not accomplished here, and if anything the breach became bigger” said Horace Bloomberg, Biodiversity and Despiciation director of Environmental Parliament’s International Reforestation Initiative.
The only thing agreed was to continue talking. Talking in Nagoya’s COP-MOP, the Ministers agreed at the end of the Ministerial REDD plus talks, this week, to redraft a 2011-12 work plan during U.N. climate talks in Mexico that start next month, so they can have something to talk about some more.
The talking plan would cover funding pilot projects, managing the cash and helping nations build up institutions. The talks in Nagoya closed today, after more than 100 ministers discussed the 2020 targets for Biodiversity protection, forestry and financing. Also under discussion was an interminable discussion about a global pact that would allow poorer nations to share their natural genetic resources, plants, animals and microbes, between governments and companies with the potential to generate new cures, medicines and vaccines worth many billions of dollars in benefits, through proper Biotech development and Bio-pharmaceutical marketing.
Negotiations on the genetic resources pact have taken many years and lots of uncertain turns but now the Environmental Parliament says Nagoya’s failure to agree on tougher targets to save forests, reefs, rivers and wetlands that underpin livelihoods and economies is a tragedy of the Commons.
We are at a very pivotal time. We are losing biodiversity on the planet at an alarming rate that cannot go on any further. Otherwise our children and our grandchildren will be not only poorer but rather naked in the cold nasty world, Environmental Parliament Minister Christian Marybone said.
Even our friend and special EP Ambassador, Harrison Ford attended the Nagoya talks and launched into the debate, urging the negotiators to protect nature and asking point blanc the United States negotiators and Ms Clinton to ratify the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity that is already under expiry threat. ”We have to create a kind of undeniable groundswell of public opinion, a kind of movement-level effect, something like the Civil Rights Movement or the Women’s Rights Movement, to advocate for the kind of work that needs to be done to protect the environment,” he said in public and is a trusted worker on this issue.
A Species Damage Report showed that between 1999-2009, about 1,200 new species of plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals were discovered in the Amazon, but were under threat from deforestation and climate change and is estimated that many thousands more have been totally lost before they were even discovered. Strange findings that included a blind red fish, a smallish potent black frog with pink rings on its body and a blue-fanged tarantula that it’s venom is greatly beneficial for autoimmune illnesses and specifically for Zoegren syndrome sufferers.
The Environmental parliament’s proposal to link up Forestry with Biodiversity remains tabled for the COP16 Mexico talks in Cancun this December. Because forests soak up the largest amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, and help curb the pace of climate change are the Earth’s and all specie’s lungs. They are also the key protectors of biodiversity by offering soil retention, where most species live, water catchments, help clean the air, offer food nutrients and medicine and their canopies are home to countless species.
And with global deforestation of approximately 40 million acres per year in the 1990s to 39 million acres per year in the past decade, with the bulk of the losses in tropical countries, there is real pain and the losses are far greater, because what we deforest today is the heart of the tropical rainforests that we’ve reached. Take out the heart and the forests are dead is what the Indians say because they understand that forests are living organisms and entities that are alive and working for our common benefit.
A forest is way far more than the simple sum of the total tree mass.
Try cutting your fingers one by one to understand the point…
Yours,
Pano
PS:
When we are ready to accept that we are really dealing with an issue of tremendous value to Life – we might be adult enough about it to accept that we should act in tandem and accomplish the protection by finally getting smart about it.
The Environmental parliament has one position: We must link the protection of the Forests and Biodiversity in one cause.
A singular Cause for Life’s protection.
Because as it turns out these two things are inseparable…
Even though stupid UN bureaucrats and government lawyerly ministers have separated what Nature created in a perfect Union and complete Harmony, it doesn’t mean we can’t bring it back together.
Gaia isn’t meant to be understood by attorneys, but by children first…
