WWF Logo


WWF Press Release






Back to the News Room

Related Information:

Climate Change Campaign

WTO Dispute Settlement Undermines RIO Earth Summit

WTO Must Heed World Leaders Call to Respect The Environment



World's Largest Environmental Agreement Endangered By Lack of Public Interest

May 22nd, 1998

Kayapo indian with medicinal plant in Amazonia, Brazil

Gland, Switzerland.- One of the world's most important international environmental agreements is in risk of going into rhetorical limbo due to the indifference of the general public and the media, WWF, the conservation organisation, said today.

Six years ago the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed by nearly all of the world's nations during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It finished its Fourth Meeting on Friday, May 15, in Bratislava, Slovakia.

"It is really discouraging to see how just a few years after the creation of the CBD --potentially the single most important environmental agreement for most of the developing world-- there is a general lack of public interest in its development," said Nancy Vallejo, International Treaties Coordinator at WWF.  "Important decisions are made by government delegations, and yet there is precious little information actually reaching the public.  How can there be any accountability?"

Decisions made in Bratislava covered a wide array of internationally relevant items that are likely to affect millions of people around the world. Among these are the exchange of information and benefits related to or originated by the use of genetic resources traded between developing and developed countries; the establishment of a programme of work by the CBD to ensure the conservation of the wide variety of plant and animal species; and also the establishment of a working group that will face the task of incorporating into the CBD process the concerns of the world's indigenous peoples, many of whom possess ancestral knowledge of plants and animals that could be worth millions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry.

Other important decision taken include the consideration of  possible connections between the work done by the CBD and other major international agreements, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  In this regard, the conference looked at establishing mechanisms to finance the conservation of biologically rich natural forests by charging industry according to the amounts of carbon emissions they send into the atmosphere.

"However, the first step towards combatting climate change must be a significant reduction of the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by industrialised countries," Nancy Vallejo observed. "Secondly, the burning/clearing of tropical forests, which contributes between ten and thirty percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, must be halted."

Contact:
Nancy Vallejo at +41-22-3649532