President Chirac expresses support for 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress
06 February 2007 | News story
During the Paris Conference for Global Ecological Governance, French President Jacques Chirac expressed support for the 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC). President Chirac conveyed his vision for the IUCN Congress to further ecological governance globally and said that France will participate with pleasure in the Congress.
During the Paris Conference for Global Ecological Governance, French President Jacques Chirac expressed support for the 4 th IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC). President Chirac conveyed his vision for the IUCN Congress to further ecological governance globally and said that France will participate with pleasure in the Congress.
“Citizens of the Earth”, the Paris Conference for Global Ecological Governance, organized by President Chirac, concluded on 3 February with a strong call for creating a more powerful United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO), which would help raise environmental issues to higher political levels.
The conference brought together 200 ministers, scientists, CEOs of international governmental and non-governmental organizations and private companies for an in-depth analysis of the state of the Earth’s environment and suggested steps to be taken to cope both with climate change and the ecological crisis the world is facing.
Presenting the results of a conference workshop on “Acting together to Safeguard Biodiversity”, IUCN President Valli Moosa pointed out the lack of awareness of biodiversity issues, the need for urgent action to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target and for bridging the gap between society, political leaders and the research community. Moosa also underlined the lack of investment in ecological research: “We spend a great deal more on space research than trying to find out what the biosphere is all about,” said Valli Moosa.
To solve some of these problems, the workshop proposed a series of measures, including clear recognition of the economic value of biodiversity, better mainstreaming of biodiversity into sectoral policies, and stronger environmental governance linking actions at both local and international levels.
As one vehicle to further international governance of biodiversity issues, Moosa presented the 4 th IUCN World Conservation Congress, taking place in October 2008 in Barcelona, with 10 000 expected representatives of governments, scientists and civil society. He invited President Chirac to attend the congress.
President Chirac responded that he would be most honored to attend the Congress and congratulated IUCN for its work: “All know about the effective actions carried out with determination and intelligence by IUCN,” said President Chirac. He even suggested that IUCN should give more visibility to the congress by doubling the number of participants and expressed a keen interest in seeing WCC moving forward global ecological governance.
