International Biodiversity Day events held in Vietnam

In an effort to raise understanding and public awareness of biodiversity and climate change, International Biodiversity Day 2007 was celebrated May 22.

This year, events surrounding International Biodiversity Day are being held in Vietnam, including Biodiversity Action Day May 19 and a biodiversity and climate change symposium May 22 and 23.

According to event literature, climate change is one of the biggest threats to the planet’s ecology and biological diversity as between 20 and 30 species teeter on the brink of extinction.

It is also claimed that climate change and the loss of biodiversity will negatively affect the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

By holding International Biodiversity day events in Vietnam, the country is hoping to draw attention to its own ecological crisis, where more than 700 species are threatened and habitats such as coral reefs, salt marshes and tropical rainforests decline.

In a commentary published by Viet Nam News, former Vietnamese president Tran Duc Luong is calling for action to ward off the potential destruction of natural disasters caused by climate change.

Luong is reacting to a report published by the World Bank suggesting that oceans would only have to rise one metre to endanger the lives of millions living lowland or coastal regions.

The report says Vietnam will be among the nations taking the biggest toll as a result of climate change with one-third of the population and one-sixth of the land mass in jeopardy.

“Many environmentalists and researchers attribute this problem to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere. Others believe the earth is in the latter stages of a natural temperature shift,” Luong wrote.

“Whatever its cause, Vietnam is vulnerable to higher water levels because approximately 10.8 per cent of its population resides in and around plains of the Hong and Mekong Rivers or coastal regions.”

International Biodiversity Day events in Vietnam are also an attempt to draw attention to Countdown 2010, a global network of partners committed to tackling the causes of biodiversity loss.

The symposium held May 22 and 23 will feature the launch of the Countdown 2010 initiative in Vietnam with a signing of the official declaration.

“As countries begin to realize the negative effects of climate change, policies and regulations to reverse the trend, as well as environmentally sound practices, will surely follow,” wrote Luong. “One can only hope we, as a nation and as citizens of the world, take action before it is too late.”

For more information, visit www.biodiversity-day.info or www.countdown2010.net.