Biodiversity, Development & Aid, Environment, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs

BIODIVERSITY: Synergy Between the Rio Conventions

Mario Osava

CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 30 2006 (IPS) - The concept of promoting synergy between the three “Rio Conventions” on the environment gained strength at the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8), which ends Friday in this city in southern Brazil.

Ahmed Djoghlaf and Hama Arba Diallo, the executive secretaries of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), respectively, announced Thursday the intention of expanding joint programmes and extending them to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“We want synergy among the three daughters of Rio-92,” said Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva, referring to the three global treaties that emerged from the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit.

“Preventing the loss of biodiversity means curbing desertification. All of these problems are inextricably linked,” and a solution must also include efforts against social problems like poverty and hunger, the minister said in a special panel held for the press to discuss the connections between the three Rio Conventions.

Djoghlaf announced that one of the decisions to be ratified Friday is his proposal for targets to be set regarding the preservation of biodiversity in arid and subhumid lands for 2010, which will include objectives outlined by the CDB as well as the UNCCD..

He also pointed out that this is the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.

Climate change is the third biggest factor in the loss of biodiversity, he said, adding that the dream of integrating the three conventions could become a reality at COP9 of the CBD, to be held two years from now in Germany.

At the same time, the climate is what lies behind the expansion of desert areas in the world, and preserving biodiversity is one way to curb that process, he said, to underscore the need for the conventions to work together.

Brazil is a key country with respect to implementation of the UNCCD, said Diallo, who stressed that joint programmes between the conventions constitute “a major step forward,” since great expertise has already been accumulated, as well as many replicable experiences, in all three areas.

Rubens Born, head of the Vitae Civiles Institute for Development, Environment and Peace, complained that even in the environment ministries, there are different sections for dealing with each convention, which do not even communicate with each other.

But at the ground level, the individuals, communities and companies that actually implement the measures outlined by the conventions do not separate the three processes, he told IPS.

That is why, he added, a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from all over Brazil have come together to identify initiatives that meet objectives involving biodiversity as well as the climate, in an attempt to bring the international debates “down to earth.”

But in a few cases, the connection between the Rio Conventions already exists in practice.

Peru’s National Environment Fund (FONAM), which foments public and private investment, is carrying out a project that seeks to identify investment opportunities that promote afforestation activities which boost carbon absorption potential and are also oriented towards restoring degraded lands and curtailing desertification.

The process of desertification threatens one-third of Peruvian territory, which is made up of arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid areas, according to FONAM.

In Brazil, the National Action Plan Against Desertification, approved in 2004 as part of a broad participatory process, is already involved in several actions that are especially focused on social problems, said Joao Bosco Senra, secretary of water resources in the Brazilian Environment Ministry.

He mentioned Brazil’s “Zero Hunger” programme, which brought together some 30 different initiatives, including incentives for family farms, a school stipend programme that provides financial assistance to poor families who keep their children in school, and a project to build one million rainwater collection tanks in households in semi-arid areas.

These projects not only alleviate poverty, but ease the destructive pressure on the environment, while bolstering skills and training in local communities, thus reducing migration, which has negative social and environmental effects, explained Senra.

Both internal and international migration are byproducts of desertification and the degradation of land, which have led to the sprawling, polluting growth of cities in the developing world, he noted. For that reason, Mexico estimates that 25 percent of its gross domestic product is affected by desertification and its consequences, he added.

A programme based on the synergies between the Rio Conventions is to begin to be put into effect this year in Brazil, with financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The aim is to identify projects focusing on the biodiversity, climate change and desertification targets.

The programme will concentrate on the Caatinga and Cerrado savannah regions in central Brazil, the semi-arid areas that face the greatest risk of desertification, which are also plagued by high levels of poverty, said Senra.