Lors d’une réunion plénière qui s’est tenue hier à New-York, l’Organisation des Nations Unies (65ème Assemblée générale) a approuvé la création d’une plate-forme intergouvernementale sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques (IPBES). Cette résolution est un autre succès de l’Année internationale de l’ONU de la biodiversité et devrait donner une impulsion à l’Année internationale des forêts qui commence en Janvier 2011, et à la décennie internationale de la biodiversité depuis Janvier 2011.

Communiqué de presse sur le site de l’UNEP : http://www.unep.org/ :

Biodiversity Year Ends on a High Note as UN General Assembly Backs Resolution Signing into Life an ‘IPCC-for Nature’

New York/Nairobi, 21 December 2010 A new international body aimed at catalyzing a global response to the loss of biodiversity and world’s economically-important forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems was born yesterday by governments at the United Nations 65th General Assembly (UNGA).

It underlines a further success of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity and should provide a boost to the International Year of Forests which begins in January 2011, and the international decade of biodiversity, also beginning in January 2011.

The adoption, by the UNGA plenary, was the last approval needed for setting up an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Governments gave a green light to its establishment in June at a meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, coordinated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), but this required a resolution to be passed at the UNGA.

The independent platform will in many ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has assisted in catalyzing worldwide understanding and governmental action on global warming.

The new body will bridge the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge on the accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world, with knowledge on effective solutions and decisive government action required to reverse these damaging trends.

Its various roles will include carrying out high-quality peer reviews of the wealth of science on biodiversity and ecosystem services emerging from research institutes across the globe in order to provide gold standard reports to governments.

These reports will not only cover the state, status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems, but will also outline transformational policy options and responses to bring about real change in their fortunes.

The IPBES will achieve this in part by prioritizing, making sense of and bringing consistency to the great variety of reports and assessments conducted by United Nations bodies, research centres, universities and others as they relate to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

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Le site de l’IPBES : http://www.ipbes.net/