Monday, January 10, 2011

World losing biodiversity at unprecedented rate: UN

Chennai, Jan 7 (IANS) The extinction of biodiversity due to global warming is thousand times higher than natural extinction and irreparable degradation may take place if ecosystems are pushed beyond certain tipping point, a UN official said here Friday.Citing the third report on Global Biodiversity Outlook, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said that the state of main ecosystem is particularly worrying as increasing impacts of climate change and ocean acidification are becoming apparent.


“We are losing our biodiversity thousand times faster than natural extinction, leading to widespread and irreversible loss of natural ecosystem,” Djoghlaf said while addressing a session on Biodiversity-Focus on Fragile Coastal Ecosystem at the Indian Science Congress here.

He said that in October 2010, the international community had gathered at the convention’s 10th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP 10) at Nagoya, Japan, to adopt a new strategic plan for protecting the biodiversity during 2011-2020 period.

“Building on our success and failures to date, the new strategic plan incorporates a 2020 biodiversity target and sub-target, and contains a means of implementation as well as a monitoring and evaluation mechanism,” he said.

The UN official called for Indian research community becoming a leader in achieving Nagoya vision. India will host the next meeting on Conference of Parties (CoP 11) in 2012.

“The stakes could not be higher, what we do, or fail to do, over the next 10 years will influence the well-being and prosperity of billions of people for generation to come,” he added.

10 held for fishing near turtle nesting site

Bhubaneswar, Jan 8 (IANS) Ten fishermen were arrested for fishing near the prohibited area of the Gahirmatha turtle nesting site in Orissa’s Kendrapada district, an official said Saturday.The men were fishing using a mechanised trawler near the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, about 175 km from here, Friday evening.


“Police and wildlife officials arrested them. The fishermen will be produced before a local court,” Divisional Forest Officer (wildlife) Manoj Mohapatra told IANS.

He said the trawler was seized.

Gahirmatha is one of the world’s largest turtle nesting sites, where 700,000-800,000 endangered Olive Ridley turtles arrive and congregate in the sea waters between October and November and nest between December and March.

Thousands of turtles get killed every year mostly by mechanized trawlers. The Orissa government has imposed a seven-month fishing ban along 120 km of the state’s 480 km coastline from Nov 1 to May 31.