Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-381"
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"en.20060315.28.3-381"2
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".
Mr President, the European Commission is committed to implementing and further strengthening international obligations related to biodiversity. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has underlined the need to take drastic steps if we want to avoid irreparable loss of the ecosystem services on which human wellbeing depends. If we do not pay attention to the links between economic development and biodiversity, we will also put at risk the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concludes that ‘an unprecedented effort is needed to achieve the 2010 target of a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss at all levels’. That global 2010 biodiversity target was adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity and endorsed at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. High-level political commitment is therefore needed to strengthen and implement the Convention on Biological Diversity and achieve the 2010 target. The eighth conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will take place during the next two weeks in Curitiba, Brazil. The COP-8 is preceded by the third meeting of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Those are major international environmental events and Commissioner Dimas will attend the ministerial segment of the eighth conference of the parties from 26 to 30 March.
The Environment Council of last Wednesday adopted conclusions setting out the EU priorities for the eighth conference of the parties. The conclusions are: first, strengthening the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity and monitoring progress towards achieving the 2010 biodiversity target; secondly, making progress in implementing the programme of work on protected areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and in particular on its objective to establish a global network of comprehensive, ecologically representative and effectively managed national and regional protected area systems. That should be done by 2010 for terrestrial areas and by 2012 for marine areas. That will also require progress regarding marine areas that lie beyond national jurisdiction. The Convention on Biological Diversity should establish scientific criteria for the identification of marine areas and species in the high seas requiring most urgent protection. The third conclusion concerns making progress with the negotiations of an international regime on access and benefit-sharing.
As regards the ongoing third meeting of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, our priorities are to finalise the adoption of documentation requirements for cross-border movements of GMOs, to develop further guidance on risk assessment and to discuss additional measures on compliance. Capacity-building issues will also be centre-stage at the third meeting of the parties.
The Commission is strongly committed to the inclusion of Members of the European Parliament as observers in Community delegations negotiating multilateral agreements and has already done so on a number of occasions.
The Commission therefore welcomes the participation of Members of the European Parliament at COP-8 and believes that they can make an important contribution. Within the limits imposed by the available staff resources at the COP, the Commission will keep Members of Parliament regularly informed of developments in the negotiations, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement."@en1
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