5
June 2008: In a message to the High-Level Conference on World Food Security
(3-5 June 2008, Rome, Italy), Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), underlined the current loss of
agricultural and livestock biodiversity, which he said is further increased by
climate change.

He
drew attention to the CBD programmes of work on agricultural biodiversity, and
climate change and biodiversity, as well as the cross-cutting initiative on
food and nutrition. He said that the “current food crisis is an example of what
lays ahead if we continue to allow the loss of diversity in agricultural seeds
despite predicted global changes in growing conditions. Dramatic rises in crop
prices could well become a symptom of the unprecedented loss of agricultural
biodiversity and certainly a reflection of its far-reaching impacts on
mankind.” Highlighting the link between conserving biodiversity and addressing
climate change, hunger, poverty reduction and food security, he drew attention
to a CBD COP 9 decision on biofuels, which called for governments to develop
sound policy frameworks and to promote the positive and minimize the negative
impacts of biofuels on biodiversity that would affect socioeconomic conditions
and food and energy security. [Statement]
[IISD
RS coverage]