‘Biodiversity dropping at an alarming pace'

ISLAMABAD:

COMSTECH on Friday organised an international conference on biodiversity to share information regarding the preparation for the 15th meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held in Kunming, China this year.

COMSTECH Coordinator-General Prof M Iqbal Choudhary, while presenting the welcome address, said this event was focused on bringing various stakeholders on board in the OIC region for a unified view at the international biodiversity conference. Prof Choudhary said the lives of our evolutionary siblings depended on conserving biodiversity.

He emphasised the need to respect all creations of Almighty Allah so they could live and prosper.

He lamented that biodiversity was dropping everywhere at an alarming pace and the impact of biodiversity loss has already crossed nature's limits of resilience.

He said that within the OIC region, biodiversity was threatened by the fast-expanding limits of northern deserts in sub-Saharan and tropical Africa and the Middle East as well as West Africa.

Whereas in the East, sea-level rise is impeding the limits of the terrestrial biosphere of Island and deltaic countries, he added.

Glaciers are melting in central Asia, northern Afghanistan, and Pakistan, he informed the participants.