20 January 2010: In a statement on the occasion of the regional workshop on “Guidelines on practices for sustainable forest management in drylands of the Sub-Saharan Africa,” held from 20-22 January 2010, in Dakar, Senegal, Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), stressed that biodiversity, desertification and climate change are interconnected.
Djoghlaf noted that biodiversity, desertification and climate change are interconnected not only through climate change effects on biodiversity and desertification, but also through changes in biodiversity and land degradation that affect climate change. He drew attention to the Joint Liaison Group between the Secretariats of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the UNFCCC and the CBD, established with the aim of enhancing coordination between the three Conventions, and to a recently published brochure on the links between forests, climate change, biodiversity and land degradation. He concluded that the celebration of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity offers a unique opportunity to enhance this collaboration. [The Statement]