More than 80 governments of the world voted in a week-long conference in Busan, South Korea, for to set up a major new international body to spearhead the battle against the destruction of the natural world.
The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also dubbed "the IPCC for nature", will be modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, which has been credited with driving global warming and climate change from a fringe scientific.
IPBES represents a major breakthrough in terms of organising a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other; will provide governments and policy makers across the world with independent and trusted scientific advice so that we can take action to protect the world's natural environment.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, will produce regular assessments of the state of biodiversity at international, regional and "sub regional" levels, mirroring the IPCC's five-yearly global assessments of global warming and its impacts. It will also develop research and conservation in developing countries, stimulate research in areas not covered, and advise policy-makers, It will focus on "poverty alleviation, human well-being and sustainable development", said Professor Bob Watson, vice chair of IPBES.
"It will be up to all the parties, including science, international governance and the media, to make sure that such a development is open to scrutiny and effective in delivering the action needed of a problem which has disastrous consequences if not urgently addressed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/11/un-ipcc-for-nature-biodiversity
