Climate change threatens environment: WWF
Tue Sep 9, 7:32 AM ET
story.news.yahoo.com
DURBAN, South Africa (AFP) - A radical change in global climate
patterns is causing irreversible damage to the environment, the WWF
ecology group warned at an international conservation conference in South
Africa.
"It has become abundantly clear that climate
change is a new and major threat to protected
areas," WWF International Director General
Claude Martin said at the World Parks Congress
in the eastern port city of Durban.
"World leaders must take steps immediately to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions if the world's
protected areas are to avoid irreversible damage,"
he told reporters on the second day of the event
attended by some 2,500 environmentalists from
more than 170 countries.
Delegates at the once-a-decade conference hosted by the World
Conservation Union (IUCN) will take stock of the world's 44,000 protected
areas and set priorities to safeguard them.
A study by the WWF shows that climate change is threatening coral reefs
due to bleaching from warmer sea temperatures.
It is also causing glaciers to melt and is forcing species and communities to
migrate, which has already resulted in losses of rare species.
The phenomenom is caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy, the
WWF has said, and accounts for over 80 percent of global warming pollution.
The atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are currently the highest in the
past 420,000 years, according to scientific tests.
"This parks congress must recognise that climate change is going to have a
severe impact on the implication of parks management and the future of
protected areas," Martin said.
"It will be very shortsighted if we do not consider what we have to do."
The 10-day conference opened here Monday.
The fifth of its kind and the first to be held in Africa, the congress will
address a range of issues related to protected areas such as national parks,
UNESCO (news - web sites) World Heritage sites, nature reserves and
marine sanctuaries.
Previous congresses played an important role in helping governments create
new protected areas and direct more resources toward the conservation of
local biodiversity.
This year the focus will extend to communities living in the protected areas,
which cover more than 10 percent of the Earth's land surface. |
