Market mechanisms are a false solution to biodiversity loss

NAGOYA, JAPAN, 28 October, 2010 – With only one day of negotiations left at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s summit in Nagoya, Japan, Friends of the Earth International urgently calls on governments to reject false solutions to halt biodiversity loss, such as trading biodiversity credits and other market-based mechanisms.

“It is urgent that the world ministers meeting in Nagoya take immediate action to preserve biodiversity. Nearly half of the world’s forests and around one-third of its species have been lost in the past three decades. The failure to meet the 2010 goals and targets that have been agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity is unacceptable. But market based mechanisms now being discussed in Nagoya will not address the root problems of biodiversity loss,” said Isaac Rojas, the coordinator for Friends of the Earth International’s Forest and Biodiversity Program.

More than 100 representatives of environmental non profit organizations and local communities met in Penang, Malaysia from October 14 to 17 for a conference on Forest, Biodiversity, Community Rights and Indigenous Peoples, organized by Friends of the Earth. They came up with a statement for governments and corporations, asking them to stop the promotion of destructive projects and start taking real action to tackle biodiversity loss. The most important issues addressed in this statement are the commodification of biodiversity and the rights of communities and indigenous peoples.

One of the false solutions on the agenda for discussion in Nagoya is the Green Development Mechanism (GDM), modeled after the destructive Climate Development Mechanism, developed within the climate change negotiations. This market based scheme would create tradable biodiversity credits and make it possible to offset biodiversity and ecological loss instead of preventing it.

“We cannot and should not rely on market mechanisms to do the job that governments should be doing. Commodification and privatization of nature and biodiversity are false solutions. Biodiversity is not for sale. Existing financial incentives usually harm biodiversity conservation rather than supporting it, and often violate the rights of local communities,” said Isaac Rojas.

For a copy of the statement, please contact Marlijn Dingshoff, media coordinator Friends of the Earth International at media@foei.org

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Isaac Rojas, coordinator of the Friends of the Earth International Forests and Biodiversity Program: isaac@coecoceiba.org or tel: + 506 22686039 and mobile +506 83383204