BIODIVERSITY AND POVERTY

That this House notes that 2010 is the UN's International Year for Biodiversity; believes that the alarming rate of biodiversity loss is not only an environmental problem but also threatens people's livelihoods, human well-being and economic progress, as well as undermining capacity to address other major challenges such as climate change; further believes that the 10th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (Nagoya, Japan, October 2010) is an opportunity for governments to signpost sustainable waysto manage the planet's limited resources to reduce global poverty, as are the upcoming international negotiations on climate change in Cancun; welcomes the report Banking on Biodiversity: a natural way out of poverty, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development and BirdLife International to coincide with these important international meetings; agrees with this report that human prosperity is rooted in nature's riches and that governments must fully recognise the economic value of natural capital or risk deepening poverty, escalating climate change and irreversible damage to the biological wealth on which all humankinddepends; and calls on the Government to contribute positively to the greener economic thinking that is required and to advocate greater integration of strategies to reduce poverty, tackle climate change and halt biodiversity loss.