Bonn, Germany - German Chancellor Angela Merkel Wednesday urged a key UN conference on preserving biodiversity to take "trailblazing decisions" to halt global species loss. "I am convinced that we need a complete change of course in the preservation of species," Merkel told representatives of around 190 countries that have ratified the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
"Nature is an incredible teacher," said the chancellor, who herself has a background as a scientist.
Merkel pledged that Germany would put up 500 million euros (785 million dollars) by 2012, the target set to significantly curb species loss.
Germany would contribute 500 million euros a year thereafter, she said, sketching out a unilateral effort to push species loss to the top of the international agenda.
Speaking at the start of the final, political, phase of the conference being held in Bonn, Merkel said the conference was an opportunity for the world community to "state that we are ready to accept responsibility, to make any effort."
She acknowledged, however, that the world faced a "gigantic task."
Merkel called for a balance in the effort required from rich countries and developing nations. The effort to save species presented an opportunity for economic reform and fighting poverty.
Developing countries needed to receive the proceeds from the exploitation of their natural resources. "Biodiversity is not just a moral issue, but an economic one," she said.
As she has done repeatedly with regard to initiatives to combat global warming, Merkel stressed the central role of the United Nations, striking a course different from that taken by the United States under President George W Bush.
Just as with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the US has signed but failed to ratify the CBD.
"Only the UN can provide the reliable framework for this," Merkel said, calling for a "strong joint message to be sent from Bonn to the rest of the world on how important we deem biodiversity to be for the future of humankind."
Biodiversity was "the very basis of our existence," the chancellor said, highlighting what she called the "enormous opportunities in medicine."
On financing the effort required, Merkel said the trading of carbon certificates could provide part of the answer, but more funding was needed.
And she highlighted the dual role the world's forests played in both absorbing carbon and in providing a habitat for species.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called for the sustainable growing of crops for biofuels, a contentious issue at the conference.
Biofuels should not be part of the problem but had to be part of the solution," he said.
On the sidelines of the conference, experts highlighted the new technologies to be gleaned from observing nature that they said were set to provide exciting applications in the decades ahead that will supersede current environmentally destructive practices.
CBD General Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf called on entrepreneurs to "wake up" to the new possibilities and to "work with nature, not against it."
Experts sketched out new technologies that came from observing plants and animals and that were already under commercial development.
The virtually frictionless coating on the skin of a particular Sahara lizard that allows it to burrow at speed through hot sand was finding applications in industry that would render conventional bearings superfluous, they said.
And the ability of certain plants and beetles in the Namib to store sugars without having access to water for decades could provide technologies that would make refrigeration redundant.
This could, for example, allow vaccines to be stored more easily and facilitate the vaccination of millions of children who currently had no access to life-saving medicines.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said, however, that these new techniques "cannot be funded by philanthropy alone."
"We need entrepreneuers. We need to change the way markets and economies work," Steiner said.
He noted that most investment was going into refining what he termed "yesterday's technologies," rather than in the paradigm shift required.
Governments had a role in encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in these new technologies, Steiner said.
The conference, which began May 19 and ends Friday, is being attended by around 6,000 delegates from around 190 countries that have ratified the CBD. The United States has signed the convention, launched at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, but not ratified it.
