Greenpeace and Wilderness Society activists in their 3 month tree sit at the Syx Valley, Tasmania, send a message to the 2000 delegates meeting at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"World governments have a huge task ahead of them," said Martin
Kaiser of Greenpeace. "They must take these next two weeks
seriously. Now is the time to ensure the future of the world's
forests and oceans and the life they sustain. Governments must
honour their commitments to halt biodiversity loss by 2010."
In recent weeks, Greenpeace has highlighted illegal logging
operations in Asia Pacific, the bycatch and potential extinction of
dolphins in the North Atlantic and plans to destroy the Patagonian
forests in Chile. These are all primary examples of how life on
earth is rapidly disappearing.
Patagonia is a typical example of an ancient forest under threat
from development, as Canadian company Noranda plans to flood
10,000ha of forest in order to build dams and a highly polluting
aluminium smelter known as Alumysa. With the aim of stopping the
project, Greenpeace has purchased land in the area to be flooded,
and in a ceremony today the land has been demarcated and declared a
protected are in an attempt to stop the project.
The Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, is continuing to
document illegal and destructive logging activities in the area of
Asia Pacific and will tomorrow release the findings of the first
leg of it's tour in the region.
Ancient forests are home to up to 80% of the world's terrestrial
diversity of plant and animal species. Millions of indigenous
peoples and traditional forest dwellers depend on these forests for
their livelihoods and culture. But ancient forests do not only
provide goods and services to local people. They provide freshwater
for millions of people living in cities far away from these
forests. Forests also regulate and maintain hydrological and
atmospheric cycles on a global level. Many international
pharmaceutical products are based on genetic resources and species
from ancient forests.
As the life of the oceans is being destroyed, huge ecosystems,
once thought to be inexhaustible, are collapsing. 90% of all large
fish- both open ocean species such as tuna, swordfish and marlin
and the large ground fish such as cod, halibut, skates and flounder
- have been fished out since 1950. Depletion of these species can
cause, among other things, massive shifts in the entire ocean
ecosystem where commercially valuable fish are replaced by simpler
organisms-such as jellyfish--feeding further down the food web.
"Because the convention on biological diversity is really a
convention for life on earth, urgent global action needs to be
taken by the governments of the world, which means that instead of
wasting time talking they should put their money where their mouth
is and put up the cash for protection of life," added Kaiser.
"To prevent further devastation they should halt all industrial
activities in large intact and sensitive areas-in both forests and
oceans, until long term and legally binding protection and
sustainable use is ensured," he concluded.
Notes: Visit: www.greenpeace.org/protectlifeonearth