Biodiversity: Ban Ki-moon warns mass extinction affects everyone

The United Nations’ Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon has warned that mass extinction will affect everyone.

Ban Ki-moon gave this warning at the launch of the UN Decade on Biodiversity, saying the growing of human family hangs on biological diversity couple with the vital goods and services that it offers.

Ban Ki-moon who was represented by Kiyo Akasaka at the event in Kanazawa Japan also affirmed that the poor will be the first to suffer from biodiversity loss and that every society also stands a chance to lose from this mass extinction.

"There are also the opportunity costs; what cures for disease, and what other useful discoveries might we never know of because a habitat is destroyed forever or land is polluted beyond all use," he said.

Additionally, he said people consider natural capital as an endless reserve instead of the limited and fragile resource they have come to be known.

"Fortunately, it is not too late to stem the tide," he said, emphasizing that considering the targets as realistic, the achievement of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Target included in the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity calls for greater engagement by all relevant actors and partners.

He commended Japan for its leadership in the support of Strategic Plan and the Decade, submitting that all the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and related conventions should rally round the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity.

"Let us work together to live in harmony with nature. Let us preserve and wisely manage nature's riches for prosperity today and for the future we want," Ban Ki-moon.

'Yinka Awosanya

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