Biodiversity panel learns from IPCC experience

Stephen Leahy in IPS via Tierramérica: After five years of preparation the international community is expected to launch the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services this year. For some of its proponents, even the decisions of the World Trade Organisation should be subject to its analysis. IPBES would be analogous to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but focused on biological diversity.

The idea behind this effort is that decisions by all levels of government are largely responsible for the decline in species and ecosystems that support life on the Earth. To put an end to species decline, governments need an independent, authoritative scientific body that can assess the impacts of proposed policies and decisions that biodiversity experts have long recommended.

"People generally have yet to appreciate the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and how much is at stake in biodiversity loss," Charles Perrings, professor of environmental economics at Arizona State University in the U.S. southwest, told Tierramérica.

"Biodiversity" is the term used to describe the wide variety of living things that comprise the planet's biological infrastructure and provide us with health, wealth, food, water, fuel and other vital services. Several reports, including last year's Global Biodiversity 3, show that policy decisions and failures to enforce regulations have put the biological infrastructure in jeopardy.

Many people fail to understand how much humans rely on the many natural services provided by nature and how fast this is changing, said Perrings. "Decisions taken today that change the biosphere will have profound implications for humanity's welfare. They must be well informed by science," he said.

In his view, "proposals put forward by the World Trade Organisation would potentially be assessed for consequences on habitat or if they would lead to dispersal of species around the globe, worsening the problem of invasive species." …

An image of the jungle in Mexico's Sierra Madre by Perojevic, who has released it into the public domain