Celebrity nature alliance supports campaign for UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity 2008
Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel receives celebrity support for a nationwide campaign on biological diversity through the founding of the "nature alliance". This new alliance for nature includes well-known personalities from politics, NGOs, industry, the media, the scientific community and culture.
Minister Gabriel said: "The countdown has started: if we want to reach the internationally agreed target of significantly reducing the loss of biodiversity by 2010, we have to make a much greater effort and get the public interested in this topic. Therefore, I am delighted that many well-known personalities from such varying fields are willing to promote this issue."
According to a recent survey carried out by the Forsa Institute for the Federal Environment Ministry, three out of four Germans consider the loss of rainforests as the most crucial problem of environmental and nature protection. The people questioned also feel that there is less information available on biological diversity than on other environmental problems.
Entrepreneurs Thomas Middelhoff and Claus Hipp, actresses Christiane Paul and Maren Eggert, polar expert Arved Fuchs, Berlin chef and businesswoman Sarah Wiener, Chairlady of Deutsche Welthungerhilfe Ingeborg Schäuble, Mayor of Bonn Bärbel Dieckmann and Chairman of Deutscher Naturschutzring Hubert Weinzierl are some of the many prominent public figures supporting the campaign. Together with the Federal Environment Minister they promote increasing public awareness of the value and benefits of biological diversity and of the UN Conference on Biological Diversity which will take place in Bonn next year. Even Knut, the popular polar bear from Berlin Zoo for whom Minister Gabriel took over sponsorship, contributes to the conference as mascot.
Minister Gabriel explained that 15,000 animal and plant species worldwide are facing extinction. "We are deleting nature's database at an unprecedented speed. This means we are destroying our planet's resources and thus our sources of livelihood and our economy." He added that combating the ongoing destruction of biological diversity had to be given the same priority as combating climate change. Both are intricately linked.
Today's International Day for Biological Diversity under the motto "Biodiversity and Climate Change" also picks up this topic. The destruction of natural eco-systems, in particular of forests, marshland and coral reefs, is one of the major sources of climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Climate change in turn has a significant impact on biological diversity. The Brazilian Amazon rainforest, for example, is in danger of drying up due to global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed: one third of all existing species is threatened with extinction because of climate change. Federal Environment Minister Gabriel said: "Biological diversity guarantees that the Earth's complex system functions and can continue to function. However, if we continue to destroy the diversity of species, habitats and genetic resources, we are also endangering the basis of our own existence."
Further information:
- Official website: Convention on Biological Diversity