Qa'da 11, 1431, Oct 19, 2010, SPA -- Animal and plant species are disappearing at an alarming rate, destroying livelihoods and damaging economies, the United Nations warned on Monday at the opening of a major meeting on biodiversity. Delegates from almost 200 countries are being asked to take sweeping steps to protect and restore ecosystems such as forests, rivers, coral reefs and the oceans that are vital for an ever-growing human population. "If we allow the current trends to continue we shall soon reach a tipping point with irreversible and irreparable damage to the capacity of the planet to continue sustaining life on Earth," the executive director of the Convention on Biological Diversity said in his opening address. "We need a new approach, we need to reconnect with nature and live in harmony with nature into the future," Ahmed Djoghlaf said. A U.N.-backed study this month said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion-equivalent to 11 percent of global gross domestic product. A separate report by the World Wildlife Fund says the world's 6.8 billion humans are living 50 percent beyond sustainable means and, at current rates, a second Earth would be needed by 2030. The U.N. delegates plan to set a new target for 2020 for curbing species loss and discuss how to boost funding to assist poor countries in this task. Countries have not met a prior U.N. convention target. Most of the world's remaining biological diversity are in developing nations such as Brazil and Indonesia and in Central Africa.
