MANILA (Reuters) - The United Nations has called on more Asian leaders to agree to a plan to end deforestation by 2020 to slow down the destruction of plants and animals, a top official said on Friday.
About 80 percent of the world's known biodiversity could be found in forests, where about 1.6 billion people also depend for their survival, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive director of U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), told a news conference in Manila.
"The project to stop deforestation by 2020 is feasible, it's doable," Djoghlaf said.
In a meeting in Germany in May, 65 countries committed to support a call by the Worldwide Fund for Nature for a zero net deforestation by 2020, but only two -- Cambodia and Vietnam -- were from Southeast Asia.
Djoghlaf said the world was losing around 13 million hectares of its forest cover every year, about the size of 36 football fields a minute. About 95 countries have totally lost their forests, he said.
In Southeast Asia, forest fires destroyed about 10 million hectares between 1997 and 2006. More trees were being felled due to shifting agricultural practices, illegal lumber trade and large-scale mining, he said.
At the current rate of deforestation, said Rodrigo Fuentes, head of Southeast Asia's Center for Biodiversity, the region would lose three-fourths of its 47 million hectares of forest and up to 42 percent of its biodiversity by 2100.
Djoghlaf and Fuentes said the destruction of biodiversity would also impact global security and the world economy due to rising competition for scarce food and fuel resources.
(Reporting by Manny Mogato; editing by Carmel Crimmins and Roger Crabb)
About 80 percent of the world's known biodiversity could be found in forests, where about 1.6 billion people also depend for their survival, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive director of U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), told a news conference in Manila.
"The project to stop deforestation by 2020 is feasible, it's doable," Djoghlaf said.
In a meeting in Germany in May, 65 countries committed to support a call by the Worldwide Fund for Nature for a zero net deforestation by 2020, but only two -- Cambodia and Vietnam -- were from Southeast Asia.
Djoghlaf said the world was losing around 13 million hectares of its forest cover every year, about the size of 36 football fields a minute. About 95 countries have totally lost their forests, he said.
In Southeast Asia, forest fires destroyed about 10 million hectares between 1997 and 2006. More trees were being felled due to shifting agricultural practices, illegal lumber trade and large-scale mining, he said.
At the current rate of deforestation, said Rodrigo Fuentes, head of Southeast Asia's Center for Biodiversity, the region would lose three-fourths of its 47 million hectares of forest and up to 42 percent of its biodiversity by 2100.
Djoghlaf and Fuentes said the destruction of biodiversity would also impact global security and the world economy due to rising competition for scarce food and fuel resources.
(Reporting by Manny Mogato; editing by Carmel Crimmins and Roger Crabb)
4 comments:
ah Kwack would jump up and call UN just a faked organization! just like he attacked Dr. Gay and Global Witnest!
talk about deforestation, look around all of southeast asia and the world for that matter, there is no more virgin forest like in cambodia. and now cambodia can set a good example for other to preserve their natural resources like forest, etc... as they have depleted them long before cambodia was developped. god bless cambodia.
As long as ah Hun Sen government (CPP) still in power, Cambodia will lost the forest.
Perhaps will lost the Cambodia too, as it now the neighboring country starting to move their border into Cambodia, and this chicken government (CPP) can not do anything.
Fuck the UN, unless they can send us some cashes. We ain't gonna suffer on their account.
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