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..Press
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UNESCAP News Services
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Date 24
January 2005
Press Release No: L/05/2005 (SG/SM/9687;
ENV/DEV/816)
IN MESSAGE TO ‘BIODIVERSITY 2005’,
SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR RATIFICATION OF BIODIVERSITY CONVENTION,
BIOSAFETY PROTOCOL
Following is the message by Secretary-General
Kofi Annan to “Biodiversity 2005” in Paris today,
24 January, delivered by Koichiro Matsuura, Director General
of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO):
It gives me great pleasure to send my greetings
and best wishes to all the participants in this important conference.
Biological diversity is one of the pillars of
life. It stabilizes the Earth’s climate and renews soil
fertility. It provides millions of people with livelihoods,
helps to ensure food security, and is a rich source of both
traditional medicines and modern pharmaceuticals. It is essential
to our efforts to relieve suffering, raise standards of living
and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Yet unsustainable patterns of production and consumption
and other harmful practices, exacerbated by poverty and other
social and economic factors, continue to destroy habitats and
species at an unprecedented rate. Moreover, if biodiversity
is under-appreciated as a resource, it is also under-appreciated
as an issue meriting high-level attention.
I therefore call on those Governments that have
not yet done so to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity
and its Biosafety Protocol. These instruments and the processes
they have set in motion are crucial for the conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity, and for the fair and equitable
sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.
The Convention has become a near-universal instrument, with
188 Parties, and has proven to be an effective vehicle for developing
new policies and concepts with regard to all ecosystems. The
Protocol gives us an international regulatory framework to ensure
the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms
resulting from modern biotechnology, thus making it possible
to derive maximum benefits from biotechnology while minimizing
the potential risks to the environment and human health.
But the preservation of biodiversity is not just
a job for Governments. International and non-governmental organizations,
the private sector, and each and every individual have a role
to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive
patterns of behaviour. The involvement of local communities
is particularly important, since many have already devised innovative
approaches in resource management and other areas from which
others can learn.
Biodiversity is a common concern for all humankind.
I am glad that you are giving this issue such high-profile attention,
and offer you my best wishes for a successful conference.
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