G8 leaders highlight critical importance of biodiversity

Montreal, 30 June 2010 – At their annual summit, held on 25-26 June in Muskoka, Canada, leaders of the
Group of Eight (G8) have again emphasized the critical importance of biodiversity to human well-being,
sustainable development and poverty eradication, and highlighted the serious threat posed by the current
rate of biodiversity loss.

Regretting that the international community is not on track to meeting its 2010 target to significantly
reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity, G8 leaders underlined the importance of adopting an ambitious and
achievable post-2010 framework.

In the G8 Muskoka Declaration, Recovery and New Beginning, leaders noted that:
“In 2010, the UN International Year of Biodiversity, we regret that the international community is not on track to meeting its 2010 target to significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity globally. We recognize that the current rate of loss is a serious threat, since biologically diverse and resilient ecosystems are critical to human well being,
sustainable development and poverty eradication. We underline our support for Japan as it prepares to host the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity this October and in particular we underline the importance of adopting an ambitious and achievable post-2010 framework. We recognize the need to
strengthen the science-policy interface in this area, and in this regard we welcome the agreement to establish an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).”

On 22 September 2010, leaders of the Member States of the United Nations will convene in New York in
a special high-level meeting on biodiversity being held prior to the opening of the general debate of the
sixty-fifth session of the UN General Assembly. The tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10) will be held from 18 to 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Aichi
Prefecture, Japan. The two meetings provide opportunity for the international community to renew and
strengthen commitment to halt the loss of biodiversity.

The Conference of the Parties is expected to adopt a new Strategic Plan for the Convention for 2011-
2020 that sets a suite of SMART targets – goals that are at once strategic, measureable, ambitious yet
realistic and time-bound – that address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss in a way that will permit
national implementation within a global framework.

“Beginning with the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit, and continuing with the G8 meetings in Toyako in
2008 and L'Aquila in 2009, biodiversity issues have been a part of the G8 agenda. It was therefore fitting
that the G8 leaders met in the host country of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to
address this vital issue at their 2010 meeting, in a year that coincides with the celebration of the
International Year of Biodiversity,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on
Biological Diversity.