Despite promises, world governments failing to save biodiversity

In 2002 world leaders committed to reducing the global rate of biodiversity loss within eight years time: 2010. While many have noted that world governments have largely failed on their promises, a new study in Science looks at the situation empirically and agrees that their has been no significant reduction in biodiversity loss and, at the same time, pressures on the world's species have risen, not fallen.

"Although nations have put in place some significant policies to slow biodiversity declines, these have been woefully inadequate, and the gap between the pressures on biodiversity and the responses is getting ever wider," said Dr Stuart Butchart the paper's lead author. Butchart works with the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Centre, as well as BirdLife International.

Biodiversity: try as we might, things just keep dying

The world is about to miss another deadline. By 2010 there was supposed to be "a significant reduction" in the speed at which varieties of life are disappearing.

Both the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations' 2000 Millennium Development Goals call for it. But the most wide-ranging analysis of global biodiversity ever attempted has found that it's not happening – despite what seem to be massive government efforts.

Never before has anyone produced a single measure of biodiversity across the thousands of species and habitats on Earth. Scientists working with CBD have developed 31 different surveillance schemes to track the loss of species, ecosystems or genetic variants in mammals, marine life, birds and other broad categories of life. This week, for the first time, they have put them together.

Nations Debate Changes to International Ban on Commercial Whaling

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Mideast animal trade under fire

BEIRUT - A 2-year-old lion, emaciated and barely breathing, is found in a tiny cage off a Beirut highway. Monkeys are hauled through the dark tunnels of Gaza, bound for private zoos. Rare prize falcons are kept in desert encampments by wealthy Arab sheiks.

The trade in endangered animals is flourishing in the Middle East, fueled by corruption, ineffective legislation and lax law enforcement.

"It's a problem in the Arab world that we can no longer ignore," said Marguerite Shaarawi, co-founder of the animal rights group Animals Lebanon.

The group is pushing for Lebanon to join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, whose signatories are meeting this month in Qatar. It is the first time the 175-nation convention is meeting in an Arab country.