U.N. - Extinctions continue despite Earth Summit goals

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Tens of thousands of animals and plants are being driven to extinction as countries fail to meet conservation targets set more than a decade ago, U.N. officials said Monday at a major conference on biodiversity.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said human activities such as logging and overfishing are rapidly sending animal and plant species to oblivion.

Many countries have failed to meet commitments under the U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

"We have to do more, not simply pay lip service," Toepfer told reporters in comments marking the start of the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

More than 2,000 government officials, scientists and environmentalists are attending the conference, which runs for nearly two weeks. Delegates hope to refocus attention on environmental issues at a time when security and trade dominate the international agenda.

They are also exploring the creation of an international framework to help developing nations and indigenous people share in the benefits of commercial use of their natural resources.

At least 60,000 species worldwide currently become extinct each year, Toepfer said, mainly because of the "global development agenda" set by wealthy, industrialized nations, which consume most of the earth's natural resources.

Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki said many countries emphasize industrialization and economic progress above environmental conservation, threatening "a major global ecological crisis."

"If China, Brazil, India and Indonesia all destroy their ecosystems and natural habitats like developed nations have done, how can nature keep supplying the resources that human beings need?" Suzuki told reporters.

Reports released at the conference Monday included a U.N. study on agricultural expansion, mining, logging and other activities threatening mountain forests, which are home to numerous endangered species and a water source for millions of people in Asia, South America and Africa.

Deforestation, climate changes and poaching are hurting populations of plants and animals in mountain regions, including the spectacled bear in the Andes, the great apes of Africa, fruit-eating birds in Colombia and butterflies in northern Vietnam, the U.N. report said.

The United States has yet to ratify the treaty while other countries have done little to implement safe habitat proposals for endangered species.

In Brussels, Belgium, EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom urged the conference to agree on a "global network of protected areas" to halt the species loss.

The EU released figures showing 52 percent of freshwater fish, 42 percent of mammals and 15 percent of birds are threatened across the European continent.

"We need to act now. We need a global policy on biodiversity, biosafety and biotechnology," said Wallstrom, who will go to the conference Feb. 18 to push Europe's point.