Diversitas held its second open science conference in Cape Town last week. As well as offering a platform for biodiversity scientists to exchange on their latest research, several on-going international initiatives used the conference as a useful venue to communicate their conclusions (or goals).
Among these, TEEB and the CBD’s 2010 targets were well represented. The director general of UNEP, Dr. Steiner, made the opening statement and was active in communicating on the “Blue Carbon” initiative.
Blue carbon? As Pavan Sukhdev, director of TEEB, told the participants in a plenary : all colours of carbon are important: black, brown, green or blue…… from power generation, transport, deforestation and changes in ocean chemistry. But his most insistent words were on the urgency of stopping the rise in sea surface temperatures if we wished to save the world’s coral reefs.
Pavan Sukhdev insists: Coral reefs are especially vulnerable to global warming
The Economist magazine offers a brief synthesis of some of the central take-home messages from the conference. You can access it on their website.
You can find the conference statement on the conference website, as well as some comments on the conference by south-african scientist Harry Biggs.
Diversitas has published conclusions and resources on the conference. Check out their website.