Climate fight must enlist biodiversity and communities

UN-led efforts to address climate change, conserve biodiversity and fight poverty could cancel each other out unless the close links between these global challenges are given more attention, says a paper published today (18 February) by the International Institute for Environment and Development.

It warns that many efforts to mitigate climate change have paid scant attention to biodiversity conservation and the world's poor.

The paper, availed to the Africa Science News Service, shows that biodiversity has a key role to play in both adapting to the impacts ahead and cutting the concentration of greenhouse gases but that, to be effective, policies must have greater input from local communities who are particularly vulnerable to climate change and have valuable local knowledge.

It comes as government parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meet in Rome this week (18-22 February) to progress talks ahead of the main CBD conference in May.

"Governments, businesses, donor agencies and individuals need to do more joined up thinking to ensure that the aims of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are met," Hannah Reid who wrote the paper with fellow senior researcher Krystyna Swiderska told Africa Science News Service.

"Pro-poor, biodiversity-friendly ways to adapt to and mitigate climate change are clearly the way forward," says Swiderska.

"But for them to work, local communities must be involved in decisions about how biodiversity is used. Good governance and fair access to land and resources must be at the heart of these efforts."

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