By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, May 25 2004 (IPS)

A new initiative was launched Tuesday to advance a campaign to protect biodiversity in Europe by 2010.

The initiative launched in Malahide in Ireland by the umbrella environmental group ‘IUCN – The World Conservation Union’ seeks to save several species under immediate threat from an estimated total of around 200,000 in Europe.

European environment ministers had signed a commitment in Goteborg in 2001 under the Swedish presidency of the EU to halt loss of biodiversity by 2010. IUCN has now taken up a new programme of action in an attempt to make that happen.

The campaign has drawn widespread support. “The IUCN itself is an umbrella group with 357 organisations within Europe,” Tim Christophersen, European regional programme coordinator for IUCN told IPS after the launch. “That includes 16 European states and 241 non-governmental organisations.”

The Countdown 2010 initiative aims to get disparate interest groups and stakeholders working together to save biodiversity, an all encompassing term to describe the variety of all life and natural processes. The initiative will focus on protection of plant and animal species.

The launch in Ireland was strongly supported by the Irish government, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) for the first half of this year. “We have commitments of support also from the next four countries to head the EU – the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Britain and Austria,” Christophersen said.

On these resources and the Countdown 2010 efforts could depend the future of many species facing extinction in Europe. These include the Iberian Lynx, of whom there are only an estimated 115 remaining. The Mediterranean monk seal, species of the cod, the Baltic salmon and the Corncrake bird are also endangered by growing urbanization and agriculture.

A ‘red list’ drawn up by IUCN suggests that 42 percent of mammals, 15 percent of birds, 45 percent of reptiles and butterflies, 30 percent of amphibians and 52 percent freshwater fish in Europe are endangered.

“To an extent the extinction of some species is natural but it is now a hundred to a thousand times higher than it should be,” Christophersen said.

The initiatives over the next six years will include action focused on themes such as the relation of agriculture and trade with biodiversity, fisheries and other such specific targets.

“We will also work with the private sector and set up awards for companies that make the best environment-friendly changes,” Christophersen said. The campaign will include events to inform European citizens of what is happening to biodiversity.

Lobbying with governments that are already IUCN members will be extended to their industry, agriculture, transport and energy departments “where most of the decisions that affect biodiversity are taken,” Christophersen said.

The Countdown 2010 project launched Tuesday ropes in major players such as the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the European Environment Agency.

“We have six years to make a difference,” IUCN president and former Ecuadorian environment minister for the environment Yolanda Kakabadse said at the Tuesday launch.

Kakabadse outlined six strategic steps to be taken over the next six years. These include encouraging the private sector to contribute more actively to conserving biodiversity and to integrate environmental issues into EU development cooperation, thus making the environment a key component of external policies.

The third step proposed is to support more research on biodiversity, and the fourth to work more intensely at implementing multilateral environmental agreements, starting with the Convention on Biological Diversity. Finally the plan seeks to integrate biodiversity with other sectors and to mobilize civil society in achieving the 2010 goal.

The initiative was emphatically supported by EU environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom. “This effort to inform European citizens about our political commitments, to maintain public pressure for delivery, and to help pull together actors from all sectors of society is much needed,” she said at the launch.

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