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发帖数: 23737 | 1 Biodiversity Talks Underway in Japan 10/27/2010 10:24:56 PM
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=36375
Global talks on how to preserve the world's natural resources are entering
their final stages in the Japanese city of Nagoya.
High level discussions between environment ministers began on Wednesday
morning, with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan outlining at the opening
ceremony the risks of inaction.
(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER NAOTO KAN SAYING:
"Today, we are losing the diversity of plants and animals in a manner
unprecedented in both speed and scale. Forest equivalent to one-third the
area of the Japanese archipelago are disappearing every year. Unfortunately,
this ongoing mass extinction is being caused mainly by the activities of us
human beings."
The Nagoya talks are aiming to come up with a 2020 target for reducing
biodiversity loss, but countries are bickering over who will foot the bill.
Current funding for fighting biodiversity loss is about $3 billion a year,
but some developing countries say this should be increased 100-fold.
Almost 200 countries are represented at the U.N-led talks.
Organisations such as the World Bank, which are not normally associated with
environmental meetings - are also taking part.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD BANK PRESIDENT ROBERT ZOELLICK SAYING:
"Why is the World Bank attending a conference on biodiversity? Our answer is
clear, successful conservation of our natural resources, our ecosystems,
our biodiversity, is central to addressing all development challenges and to
improving the lives of the poor."
http://online.wsj.com/video/biodiversity-talks-underway-in-japan/5BC27221-4C4A-4C12-9214-886227E26892.html
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中央日報 網路報 2010-10-06
http://www.cdnews.com.tw/cdnews_site/docDetail.jsp?coluid=109&docid=101311637
國際/生物多樣性條約締約國會議下周日本舉行
陳淑娟/整理
生物多樣性條約第10屆締約國會議(簡稱COP10)將於10月11日至29日在日本愛知縣名
古屋市舉行。
所謂生物多樣性，是指地球上所有生物——植物、動物和微生物及其生存環境的總和
，既包括生態系統的多樣性，也包括物種和遺傳基因的多樣性。
作為本次會議的舉辦地，愛知縣是如何保護環境、為保護生物多樣性做貢獻的？近日
，本社記者隨日本外國記者中心赴愛知縣進行了實地考察。
愛知縣位於日本本州中部，人口約725萬，縣府所在地名古屋市人口約220萬，是日本
第4大城市。
愛知縣是日本的製造業中心之一，在汽車、機械、電機、鋼鐵等領域實力雄厚，汽車
巨頭豐田公司總部就設在該縣。愛知縣曾于2005年舉辦世界博覽會，在保護環境特別是
森林、濕地等方面頗有建樹，曾創造垃圾分類的“名古屋方式”。
總部位於愛知縣常滑市的伊那株式會社是世界最大的瓷磚生產商，也是衛浴設施巨頭
。該公司展示了他們1年多前發明的一種叫“保水陶瓷”的新材料。“保水陶瓷”全身
佈滿小孔，具有超強吸水能力，吸水率可達60%。下雨時，它可充分吸收水分。陽光照
射時，吸收的水分會緩慢蒸發，帶走熱量，有效降低溫度。如將這種新材料鋪在城市樓
頂或街道上，可緩解城市的“熱島效應”，從而達到節能減排、保護環境的目的。該公
司宣佈，他們正在努力降低“保水陶瓷”的生產成本，預計2年內將推出實用產品。
龜山周央是愛知縣碧南市的一名普通農民，今年66歲。7年前，當他得知日本芝麻自
給率僅有0.1%，國產芝麻幾乎處於滅絕邊緣時，開始下決心種植金芝麻。為增加產量，
拯救處於滅絕邊緣的國產金芝麻，他創立了國產金芝麻栽培事業網路，號召其他農戶一
起種植，目前全國有50多戶農戶加入，年產量達8噸，占日本國產金芝麻產量的2/5。對
加入國產金芝麻栽培事業網路的農戶，龜山周央的要求只有兩個：在任何情況下都不使
用農藥，不殺死害蟲。他認為，只有通過純天然的方式才能培育出高品質的金芝麻。
《生物多樣性條約》制定於1992年，目的是保護生物及其棲息地、實現生物資源的可
持續利用和公平合理地分配利用生物基因資源所產生的利益，目前全球共有193個國家
和地區加入。中國于1993年成為該條約締約國。
第十屆會議為期19天，預計將有包括中國在內的近190個國家和非政府組織的4600多
人與會。 (中新社)
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英文新聞報導: COP10 to take on genetic,indigenous issues-Japan Times (Sept
.28)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100928i1.html
The Japan Times
Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010
COP10 to take on genetic, indigenous issues
By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer
From Oct. 18 to 29, the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the
United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP10, takes
place in Nagoya.
Climate confab: Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara delivers a speech during a
high-level meeting on biodiversity at the U.N. last Wednesday. KYODO PHOTO
Billed by some NGOs and Japanese government officials as the conference that
will sign a "Kyoto Protocol for all living things," COP10 has a number of
goals, including setting targets to conserve biodiversity systems over the
next decade and creating a new body of experts to advise the U.N. on
biodiversity.
Most controversially, it will seek to establish a new global agreement on
how to more equitably share the benefits of genetic resources, often found
on indigenous people's lands, that are used by pharmaceutical companies and
others.
What's the Convention on Biodiversity, and what is it supposed to do?
The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), along with the United Nations
Framework on Climate Change Convention, was born at the 1992 Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro, where it was recognized that, although the two issues were
related, a separate negotiation regime was needed to deal with biodiversity
loss and preservation.
The Convention has three main objectives: to conserve biological diversity;
to use biological diversity, i.e. ecosystems and their related components,
in a sustainable manner; and to share the benefits of biological diversity
fairly and equitably. To date, there are 193 parties to the convention.
In May 2002, at the CBD's COP6 meeting, it was agreed to work to make a
significant reduction of the current state of biodiversity loss at the
global, regional and national level by 2010. There were several problems
with this goal, however.
The first and most obvious is that it failed to commit states to specific
numerical goals, leaving each party to determine politically rather than
scientifically what was meant by a "significant reduction."
Another problem was that, unlike climate change, there was no one
international body of scientific experts advising the U.N. at the time with
the political clout enjoyed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
. Without such a body, forging an agreement on specific numbers was all the
more difficult.
Given this background, it's not surprising that the U.N. recently concluded
that, far from achieving significant reductions by 2010, the situation is
growing much worse.
How much worse?
To give just a few examples the U.N. cites, 70 percent of the world's coral
reefs, which nearly a half a billion people depend on for their lives and
livelihoods, are threatened or have already been destroyed.
Of the world's 5,490 mammals, 79 are extinct, 188 are critically endangered,
449 are endangered, and 505 are vulnerable to extinction if current trends
continue.
And 1,895 of the world's 6,285 known amphibians are in danger of extinction.
Scientists have advised the U.N. the world is facing the greatest
extinction crisis since the end of the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years
ago.
Will COP10 also deal with preventing the extinction of these species?
In practice, what has the CBD done, and has it met its goals?
Participants in the International Youth Conference on Biodiversity in Aichi
2010 study plants in Mie Prefecture on Aug. 24. KYODO PHOTO
COP10 will work on forging an agreement to halt the loss of the biodiversity
systems sustaining these species by 2020. But the convention is not
designed to deal with the conservation and preservation of individual
species, as there are other conventions and international agreements that
address specific species conservation.
In other words, you will not find lines of text in the final COP10 agreement
that agree to protect a certain percentage of the world's remaining polar
bears and snow leopards, or whales, dolphins and bluefin tuna.
Then what, exactly, will the agreement say?
At present, the text of the draft that will be discussed at COP10 gives
delegates the option of conserving by 2020 either 15 or 20 percent of all
terrestrial and inland waterways, and an undetermined percent of coastal and
marine areas.
In addition, delegates will debate whether by 2020 the rate of loss and
degradation, fragmentation of natural habitats is either halved or brought
close to zero. However, these numbers are highly controversial, with many
governments opposed to stringent targets and some NGOs saying they should be
even tougher.
Just because these are the numbers that will be brought to the table in
Nagoya doesn't mean other options won't be decided on by the time the
conference ends.
And what about the concept of access and benefit-sharing?
This is expected to be the other area of major difficulty for concluding an
agreement at COP10. Under the convention, any financial benefits that result
in giving access to genetic resources to others, especially corporations,
are supposed to be shared as equally as possible with the people who live
where those genetic resources originated.
What this means in practice is that, for example, a pharmaceutical company
in country B that creates a new vaccine or medicine using the genes from a
plant or biological organism located on indigenous people's lands in country
A and long used for medicinal purposes should financially compensate those
peoples for their knowledge after the drug has been patented and sold.
One purpose of COP10 is to agree to a new regime on access and benefit-
sharing that will ensure indigenous peoples worldwide are compensated fairly
. But pharmaceutical companies in many advanced countries are opposed to
creating a strong regime while countries with large indigenous populations
support one.
What does COP10 mean for Japan?
As conference host, Japan must show political leadership by bringing
together nations that are far apart on both how much of the world to set
aside for biodiversity conservation by 2020 and how much indigenous people
and others should be compensated for use of genetic resources that
originated on their lands after those same resources are developed into
patented products.
Japan must also deal with expectations that it will make a financial
commitment to biodiversity protection in developing nations.
In addition, Japan will likely have to deal with international criticism
that, because of its prowhaling stance and opposition earlier this year to a
proposal for an international ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna, it has already
failed to provide leadership on biodiversity conservation issues and so
therefore can't be expected to help forge a strong agreement at COP10.
At the same time, however, Japan will propose its Satoyama Initiative of
traditional farming methods as one way of conserving biodiversity systems
worldwide.
Tokyo has already received positive signals from other nations in regards to
its suggestion that the period between now and 2020 be officially
designated by the U.N. as the biodiversity decade, which would, the idea's
supporters hope, raise public and political awareness of biodiversity issues
to the level now enjoyed by climate change issues.
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