UN meeting aims to agree species-saving initiative

AN international conference aimed at preserving the planet’s diversity of plants and animals in the face of pollution and habitat loss begins today in Japan, facing some of the same divisions between rich and poornations that have stalled UN climate talks.

Seventeen years after the UN Convention on Biological Diversity was founded, it has yet to achieve any major initiative to slow the alarming rate of species extinction and loss of ecosystems, despite global goals set in 2002 to make major improvement by this year.

Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of disappearing, coral reefs are the species deteriorating most rapidly and nearly a quarter of all plant species are threatened, according to the convention, which is convening the two-week meeting.