Biodiversity Depends Mainly on the World’s Rich, Says Brazil’s Lula

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio da Silva participated this Monday, March 27. in the opening of the high-level meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Biological Diversity Convention (COP-8), in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba.

In his address he declared that the preservation of biodiversity on the planet depends mainly on the political will of countries, especially the developed ones.

"It also requires developed countries to fulfill their promises in terms of international cooperation," Lula insisted. In the president’s view, democracy is the path to a fair division among countries in the defense of the planet’s biodiversity.

"Finance, technology, and world trade can take globalization as far as possible, but it is up to democracy, with more and more social participation, to avert a constant collision between our needs and our excesses."

The president referred to what Brazil has done to preserve nature, such as approving the forest management law and the National Water Resources Plan, reducing deforestation in the Amazon, and producing biodiesel fuel.

Nevertheless, Lula admitted that much remains to be done in the environmental area, and he asked the environmental activists to continue making their demands.

The 8th Conference of the Parties to the Biological Diversity Convention began last week. 3.6 thousand delegates from 173 countries are attending. The convention was endorsed in 1992 by 187 signatory nations, plus a regional bloc (the European Union).

The convention acts as an alliance among countries to work in cooperation for the preservation of the environment, the sustainable usage of natural resources, and the division of benefits. As a general rule, the decisions are simple recommendations, without the force of law.

Agência Brasil