ENVIRONMENT: Technology, Green Concerns to Mix at Key Meeting

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 13 2004 (IPS) - When the world’s largest gathering of environmentalists meet in the Thai capital in November, they are to embrace advances in technology as a vital ally in protecting the earth’s biodiversity.

The ”biodiversity commons” is being billed as one of the important initiatives expected to come out of the Third World Conservation Congress, said a conference official.

It will be a ”master database containing comprehensive information about the earth’s environmental wealth,” Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist of The World Conservation Union (known by its initials IUCN), told IPS.

As a result of this marriage between technology and environmental protection, the public will have free access to the latest details about biodiversity and conservation issues, added McNeely. ”The information was available piece by piece earlier.”

The IUCN scientist has identified the availability of digital cameras as one of the many tools that will strengthen this initiative. ”We did not have digital cameras around at out last congress (four years ago). Now you can have better visual images.”

The planned ”biodiversity commons” is also expected to receive a boost from leading players in science and technology, such as the U.S. government’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Oracle, the corporation recognised as the major provider of software for the Internet.

”NASA is offering satellite imagery to assess habitat change,” McNeely revealed. ”And from the private sector, Oracle is also interested in helping.”

The Bangkok conference, to be held from Nov. 18-20, will have between 3,000 to 4,000 participants, Aban Marker Kabraji, IUCN’s regional director for Asia, said at a press conference here Wednesday.

They will come from among the 76 states, 114 government agencies, 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries and over 800 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who are partners of the IUCN.

Like previous congresses, this year’s gathering will have the world’s prominent environmental planners and thinkers sharing ideas in order to shape and influence public policy, added Kabraji. ”It will be as political as any forum.”

Four themes will frame the discussions: ecosystem management; health, poverty and conservation; biodiversity loss and species extinction; and markets, business and the environment.

This broad agenda stems from the IUCN’s realisation that conservation issues cannot be resolved ”one by one,” McNeely told the press conference. ”These issues are all inter-related and we have to approach them across a broad front.”

Under ecosystem management, for instance, conference participants will look at how the increasing demands for food and clean water can be met while at the same time conserving the environment, states an IUCN background note.

”This theme will consider lessons learned from around the world to manage land and seascapes, as well as explore the tools and mechanisms best suited to sustainable biodiversity and productivity,” it adds.

Under health, poverty and conservation, the conference will focus on ways to help the world’s poor, given that they have a pivotal role in conserving the earth’s natural wealth.

”More than a billion mostly poor people now live within the world’s 19 forest biodiversity ‘hotspots’ and over 90 percent of those who live on less than a dollar a day depend fully or in part on forest products for their livelihoods,” states the backgrounder.

Regards biodiversity loss and species extinction, attention will be directed toward the estimated 12,259 species of plants and animals across the world that are under threat of extinction, states the note.

The giant catfish in the Mekong River is among those on the watch list as is the Chinese alligator.

Shortly before the congress gets underway, the IUCN will be releasing the 2004 ‘Red List of Threatened Species,’ which has become the universally accepted classification of extinct species.

”The 1996 List revealed that one in four mammal species and one in eight bird species face extinction, while the 2000 List confirmed that the global extinction crisis is as bad or worse than believed,” revealed the IUCN note.

The World Conservation Congress, which is the governing body of the IUCN, and the conservation union’s general assemblies have provided the initial spark for an array of international conventions to protect the environment.

They include the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Heritage Convention.

The Bangkok meeting will also produce a series of resolutions that represent the policies of IUCN, says McNeely. ”It will demonstrate that there is a constituency for nature conservation, (because) three billion people – half the world’s population – visit national parks annually.”

The Second World Conservation Congress was held in Amman, Jordan, in October 2000.