Two days before Christmas Eve, theUnited Nations General Assembly put forward, after a year of negotiations, the new Panel of experts for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Of course, he caught us all buying the Christmas tree and with the prawns in hand and the news passed without shame or glory. After the hangover, congratulations and reviewing the New Year’s resolutions, I have decided to pay attention to the news.
And it is that, based on the operating model of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change), the new IPBES ( Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) was created with the aim of helping governments and the general public to understand and analyze the importance of biodiversity loss. IPBES intends to enlist the best scientists in the field to evaluate this phenomenon and thus contribute to an improvement and prompt action by our leaders. To this end, it will periodically publish relevant reports.
During this month and supported by the environment ministers from different countries, they will try to shape the structure and mode of operation. Its promoters have ensured that despite its similarity to the IPCC, it will have new and modern mechanisms to improve its operation and thus avoid past mistakes.
In this way, biodiversity is once again placed in a privileged position on political agendas. And it is that, taking stock of 2010, scheduled as the Year of Biodiversity, everything initially pointed to the year of the end of biodiversity, due to the lack of consensus and the non-compliance of measures by almost all, that itself seasoned with good intentions. But the efforts of many made us end the year with pleasant surprises, and I will mention a few: the agreement signed between more than 200 countries in Nagoyawith objectives of drastically reducing the loss of biodiversity by 2020; the agreement of Cancun with the long-awaited Green Fund; the commitment of some countries to integrate Biodiversity loss cost analysis tools (a national application of Teeb- Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity); or the new IPBES that will ensure a more accurate analysis, measurement and monitoring.
There are many voices that see the efforts as insufficient and that call the Year a failure. But in my opinion it is extremely important that an organization like the United Nations has emphasized the problem, because it has undoubtedly mobilized different initiatives and has put on the table the importance of a term in no man’s land. And it is that biodiversity passes through many hands, but without becoming a priority in any. The lack of scientific consensus has made it vulnerable and politically forgotten for a long time. A scientific platform like IPBES can give hope to all those who, like our friend, Karmele , they have had to eat many king cakes in the jungle, trying to see if the magic of Christmas would stop the destruction of nature. Therefore, I celebrate the late arrival of IPBES and include it in my wish list for 2011.