MEP calls for fresh action to tackle biodiversity decline

A parliamentary intergroup was today re-launched in a bid to boost efforts to halt "disastrous” biodiversity decline.

Speaking at a news conference, UK centre-right MEP Struan Stevenson said that EU targets aimed at curbing biodiversity loss by the year 2010 were unlikely to be met.

He said, “What is needed in a new set of more realistic targets which are actually achievable. We need serious targets to stop biodiversity and species loss.”

Stevenson chairs parliament’s sustainable development intergroup, which was set up 15 years ago and is now the assembly’s biggest intergroup with 120 members.

But he announced that this will be renamed the ‘climate change and biodiversity’ group in an effort to “re-energise” EU efforts to address the issue.

Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems and refers to the many millions of distinct biological species, which is the product of nearly 3.5 billion years of evolution.

Stevenson, who has chaired the group for the past five years, said, “The challenge and urgency for a new biodiversity target is at least as high as defining the post Kyoto climate target.

"We simply have to do more to halt the potentially disastrous biodiversity decline."

He said that for the next legislature, the group will focus on climate and biodersity, adding, “Climate change and its impact on biodiversity deserve policymakers’ maximum attention.

“To ensure that we keep these issues high on the agenda of current MEPs and those elected in June, we are relaunching the intergroup.”

He went on, "If compared to efforts for biodiversity at a global scale, the EU is not doing enough. Most of the countries that ratified biodiversity-related conventions have developed national action plans while in Europe several countries still do not have such strategies in place."

Alongside the re-launch, parliament was on Wednesday hosting a debate on the current state of the EU’s biodiversity action plan.

The event included a range of experts representing government, business and NGOs.

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