Homo sapiens may not have been responsible for the five distinct spasms of extinctions in geological time that began an estimated 440 million years ago, but humans are centrally implicated in the ongoing sixth wave of severe biodiversity loss. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was drafted in 1992 to stem the decline. It entered into force a year later with the avowed aim of significantly reducing loss of species and even using them where compatible to alleviate poverty. But nearly two decades later, the treaty has largely failed to meet its targets. There is now another opportunity available to make it work. The parties to the CBD are holding their 10th conference in the Japanese city of Nagoya and with sufficient political will they can reverse the tide of species losses. The member-countries have done well to acknowledge the all-round disappointment that their renewed commitment made in 2002 to reduce biodiversity loss remains a dead letter. They are now challenged to deliver on their assurances and act more intelligently on climate change, habitat loss and degradation, excessive exploitation, spread of invasive alien species, and pollution, all of which affect plant and animal survival. What provides some hope is the persistence of a large amount of biological diversity.
The key to conservation is to recognise the role of nature in providing ecosystem goods such as fodder, fibre, genetic resources, fresh water, and services such as cleansing of air, nutrient flow, erosion prevention, flood control, pollination, and disease regulation. That this economic dimension of nature is being increasingly accepted the world over is heartening. At the Nagoya conference, the Group of 77 and China have made the forward-looking suggestion that countries of the South should forge closer cooperation to protect biodiversity, and use financial resources available from developed-country partners. In particular, fast-developing China’s focus on protecting 35 priority conservation areas making up 23 per cent of the country is extremely promising. India is also focussed on growth, but it needs to do more for ecosystems facing the onslaught of poorly planned development. It must begin by showing genuine recognition of nature’s value. National development policy cannot afford to ignore the central role played by biodiversity. At the global level, the CBD has the opportunity once again to arrive at a consensus on sustainable use of plant diversity. Such an agreement will help local communities access and benefit from use of invaluable genetic resources. The ethical imperative to save the world’s species is to restrict consumption of all natural resources to a sustainable level and allow for natural renewal.
As has been enunciated by your article on the concerned subject and emhasized in the last sentence "it is not only to restrict the consumption of all natural resources to a sustainable level but also to make it imperative to inculcate a habit of protecting the nature's bounty by various means of integrating the systems of learning(acadamic streams)earning(professional and employment channels for lively hood) and living(social practices of making roti kapada our makaan)-patterns of making stuff for living comforts and disposing the wastes thereof.Awareness from the very elementary levels of education will certainly have a positive impact of learning the importance of protecting the nature and our own responsibility to save it. It would be justifiable to shoulder the responsibility before we really realise that there is little time to make amends to our policies and practices.Suggestions in this regard.1. Integrating the education system with observable and practical features of protection of nature and prevention of practices that pollute and destroy the serenity of nature. All religious practices should also incude nature conservation as one of the main objectives of serving the lord. 3. All offices and work places should strictly observe the ethics of protecting the nature.4. The Government should make ground rules to be observed by all the channels of education employment,professions and religious bodies. 5. These should form the part and parcel of all academic courses to be observed and practiced in all places without geographical boundaries.
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