An intersting article on New York Times website today.
UNITED NATIONS — Governments are largely ignoring a biodiversity protection treaty they signed 17 years ago, allowing the rate of species decline to continue at an alarming rate, the United Nations said in a report released today.
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“The five principal pressures directly driving biodiversity loss (habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change) are either constant or increasing in intensity.”
The report does see progress in the creation of preserves, in particular in the number of protected marine areas announced in recent months, but the overall assessment of the treaty by its Montreal-based secretariat paints a grim picture, saying habitat losses have offset gains. Wetlands, salt marshes and habitats for shellfish seem to be suffering the most damage.
Read the full article here. It seems that the institution that was created for this purpose is failing. It is hard to pinpoint the exact cause in this context, but whether the involved nations are un-willing, un-able or both – it definitaly does not strengthen the institutionalized top-down way of managing these complex problems.
The research we have been doing at the eco-currency.net headquarters point strongly towards towards a different method to take care of these problems: collaboration. See this scenario, and this page to shine some refreshing – yet still very conceptual – light on the matter.