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On the occasion of World Environment Day, and in the run-up to the G8 Heads of State summit, senior officials of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), The World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Equator Initiative, GEO Magazine, and the biodiversity alliance Countdown 2010 encouraged Group of Eight leaders to take bold steps to protect the diversity of life on earth and support adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), emphasized that “Climate change and biodiversity loss, two strongly linked issues, are poised to interfere with, and even reverse, progress that is being made towards the Millennium Development Goals; disrupt economies and international trade; and fuel international conflict over access to land and resources.”

“A stable climate is essential to maintaining biologically diverse ecosystems and in securing peoples’ livelihoods, including the maintenance of food security and access to clean water,” Olav Kjørven, Assistant Administrator and Director for UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy, underscored.  “In addition to regulating climate, biodiversity provides the world’s population – most directly, the poor in developing countries – with food, medicine, building material, and bioenergy. It is particularly noteworthy that developing countries are most directly affected by the consequences of climate change, while developed countries have contributed most to it.”

The World Environment Day message was presented as part of a series of events at Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde centering on climate change and biodiversity and its role in realizing sustainable development. The events included panel discussions, a photo exhibition highlighting biodiversity and an awards ceremony honoring the winners of the prestigious Equator Prize (see below), which salutes grassroots leaders in utilizing biodiversity to sustain livelihoods.

Panel spokespersons, including Astrid Klug, Germany's Parliamentary State Secretary for the Environment; Peter Seligmann, President and CEO of Conservation International; and Jeffrey A. McNeely, Chief Scientist, IUCN; stressed the need for more concerted action to link both climate change and biodiversity policy discussions and implementation mechanisms.

The day's events were supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ); Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Countdown 2010, the Equator Initiative, GEO Magazine, IUCN - The World Conservation Union and UNDP.

Dr. Michael Hofmann of BMZ, in committing to deliver the World Environment Day Message to G8 leaders, stressed: “Biodiversity needs to be placed on the highest level of the political agenda. It must form an integral dimension of global economic policy.”

The Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together civil society, business, governments, and communities, with the support of the United Nations, to help bolster the skills and knowledge and share the stories of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Building on the formal message for World Environment Day, the Equator Initiative offered the following specific recommendations for action:

“In addition to reaching the 0.7 per cent ODA target, the G8 must provide the global leadership to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation, and implement innovative financing mechanisms to direct funds from carbon markets towards sustainable development in the world’s poorest countries. 
 
We urge the G8 negotiators to adopt a clear mandate to use the UNFCCC COP in Bali of this year to agree on a formal negotiating mandate for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol by 2009, thus demonstrating leadership to the rest of the world community. 
 
We call on the G8 to lead the world in integrating biodiversity and climate change concerns into all relevant sectors such as trade, development, agriculture, finance and transport. 
 
The G8 should take the lead in establishing the terms for the production and trade of ethical, environmentally, socially, economically sustainable biofuels and consider establishing formal mechanisms to provide concrete guidelines and recommendations. 
 
We ask the G8 to support an economically viable socially equitable incentive scheme for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation in order to ensure that the world’s poorest countries have reason to safeguard their vast forest wealth in manner that benefits not only the planet but also safeguards the rights and livelihoods of local forest-dependant communities. 
 
The G8 must give weight to the value of traditional knowledge in preventing biodiversity loss and adapting to climate change by investing at the community-level to help poor countries respond to development challenges and achieve the MDGs.” 
 
World Environment Day participants encouraged leadership of the G8 to take concrete steps to address climate change hand-in-hand with biodiversity conservation. “The Heiligendamm Summit offers a unique opportunity for the leaders of the G8 to come together to ensure the urgent action required commensurate with the unprecedented challenges facing humanity”, said Benson Venegas of ANAI, Talamanca Initiative, Costa Rica.

Equator Prize winners

Later in the day of biodiversity events, five communities from throughout the tropics were honored with the Equator Prize, an international recognition of extraordinary work to diminish poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  The Prize, awarded biennially since 2002, serves to further advance the understanding within the global community of the vital link between healthy, biologically diverse environments and the creation of sustainable livelihoods.

The five winners, representatives of which will attend a dinner in their honor tonight, were selected from a group of 25 finalists, chosen from more than 300 nominations from 70 countries.  The five initiatives honoured are:

• The Village of Andavadoaka on the island of Madagascar, which demonstrates how communities can organize to manage a valuable resource, in this case the octopus fishery, so that it can provide sustainable benefits over the long term.
• Shidulai Swarnivar Sangstha uses riverboat-based educational-resource centres throughout Bangladesh’s Ganges River delta to deliver information on sustainable agricultural practices and market prices. 
• In Guatemala, the women of Alimentos Nutri-Naturales have reinstated the Maya nut as a staple source of nutrition, thereby conserving the Maya nut forests in the buffer zone to the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
• Shompole Community Trust in Kenya conserves the vast and scenic grasslands and savannah to fuel a robust, profit-driven ecotourism venture benefiting the Maasai people.
• In Ecuador, in the Galapagos UNESCO World Heritage Site, the women of Isabela Island’s “Blue Fish” Association are marketing a local delicacy, tuna smoked with guava wood, as a way of promoting alternative use of marine resources and controlling the invasive plant species.

 In addition to international recognition for their work and an opportunity to help shape international policy and practice in the field, each winner will receive US $30,000. The Equator Prize focuses on community-based initiatives between 23.5 degrees of latitude north and south of the equator; one Equator Prize is awarded in each geographical region of eligibility (Latin America and the Caribbean; Africa; and Asia and the Pacific), one to a community-based project associated with a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one to a project that best exemplifies sustainable biodiversity-based business.