Since their appearance on Earth, humans have developed by using plants and animals for food, clothing, residences, medicines and other purposes. Ecosystems are the basis of human existence. This basic fact does not change no matter how much industrial civilizations may progress. An important measure of the health of ecosystems is the variety of organisms living in them — a quality known as biodiversity.
In 1992, the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro produced the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD seeks to achieve three main objectives — preservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of biological resources, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources among parties concerned. A big weak point of the CBD is that the United States is not a party to it. Japan and other countries should make serious efforts to get the U.S. to join.
From Oct. 18 to 29, representatives from 192 countries and the European Union, which are parties to the CBD, are attending the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the CBD in Nagoya. They are reviewing what has happened to systems' biodiversity during the past decade and forging strategies and rules for the next 10 years to protect global ecosystems and make sure there is sustainable use of biological resources.