IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Message from Bonn puts ecosystem services at centre stage

30 March 2009 | News story

On 9 and 10 March, 50 distinguished participants gathered in Bonn for a high-level meeting called for the German Presidency to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties (CBD COP), to discuss the scope and nature of future global targets on biodiversity.

The message from the meeting (attached) highlights the importance of a post 2010 target that values the services that nature provides in maintaining life on earth, supporting human livelihoods, and combating climate change. The message from Bonn also calls for a positive look at the current economic crisis and the opportunities that it presents for triggering change in favor of biodiversity and creating broad ownership for a future biodiversity conservation framework. Participants also called for using the numerous events planned from now until September –October 2010, when the world will meet at the United Nations General Assembly to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity and at the 10^th CBD COP to assess progress made until then in “reducing the rate of biodiversity loss” and launch a new biodiversity framework based on the lessons learnt from the last years, to spread the word about the main highlights included in the Bonn message.