Report of the world biodiversity tätsrats signed

With a great success the conference of the world's biodiversity tätsrats (IPBES). All of the 132 member States have, in Paris, signed a report on the status of the species and Ecosystems around the world. The exact content will be published only on Monday, but it is already clear that the agreement means a significant progress. Some already speak of a 1.5-degree Moment of the protection of species.

The IPBES is the counterpart to the IPCC, whose reports were paving the way for the Paris climate protection agreement. In the was formulated in the year 2015, for the first time, the goal is to limit the rise in temperature to well below two degrees in order to keep the risks of climate change as low as possible. "The IPBES report of this exact flight altitude and must be taken by the politicians just as seriously," says Günter Mitlacher, head of the environmental organization WWF, the Department for International biodiversity policy and the negotiations in Paris has followed.

to create the 1000 page report and the accompanying "summary for policymakers", evaluated 150 experts from 50 countries for three years, thousands of studies. The signatures on this impressive document in which the collected Knowledge about the state of the earth combined, do not mean that the Contracting States are obliged, all the recommendations of the IPBES experts to implement. However, the agreement on a scientifically-based assessment is at least a start – a base on which you can find in the future solutions together. "We need this report to the discussion about the biodiversity, to promote and to develop a strategy for the next ten years," says Mitlacher. The negotiations in Paris, he described as "very constructive", however, experts and politicians for several nights had been discussed to the document signature was ripe.

The sixth great species extinction

for a long time among experts, it is indisputable that the sixth great species extinction of the earth's history occurred. As the fifth event of this type biologists lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. A Problem, however, is that many plants and animals far too little white to be able to extent and consequences of the loss of judge. With the best of the amphibians are explored. Already in the 1980s, biologists noticed that frogs, toads, newts and salamanders have been decimated in many regions of the world. Reliable data are also available to the birds in Europe. They show that especially those species that live in the agricultural landscape, are under pressure. Much thinner, the Knowledge about the insects. The most famous study of the insects shrinkage comes from Germany and shows that the number of insects has declined in the past 30 years.

"especially the land use is for a long time as a key driver of biodiversity loss, including the insects atrophy," says Josef Settele, agricultural scientists at the Helmholtz-centre for environmental research in Leipzig, and Co-chair of the IPBES. Their analysis have identified a particularly important part of the work on the signed report.

Also, environmentalists point to the loss of Species, but half as much attention, such as the earth rhitzung. "The curves all go in the wrong direction." Environmental groups are calling for, among other things, a reversal in the EU agricultural policy. "The increasingly intensive agriculture dying is the main driver for the species, not only in Europe," says Konstantin Kreiser, a species protection expert at the nature protection Association Nabu. Also, there is a need for an international agreement on more protected areas, where endangered species can recover.

but While the States come together on climate protection each year at the Ministerial level, meets the Convention on biological diversity only every two years – next Time in 2020 in Beijing. There would have to follow the report did, says Georg Schwede from the organization Campaign for Nature, Germany and the EU would have to make pressure. "Otherwise, the IPBES report is not a Wake-up call, but, at best, a Declaration of Bankruptcy to the diversity of species."

On Monday, the report will be presented at the G7 environment Ministers meeting in the French city of Metz.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 04.05.2019, 14:28 PM