Coral reefs are under assault. They are rapidly being degraded by human activities. They are over-fished, bombed and poisoned. They are smothered by sediment, and choked by algae growing on nutrient-rich sewage and fertilizer run-off. They are damaged by irresponsible tourism and are being severely stressed by the warming of the world's oceans. Each of these pressures is bad enough in itself, but together, the cocktail is proving lethal.
It is important to recognize that behind the razzmatazz of consumerism, we all remain dependent on basic natural resources - land, air, water and biodiversity - for every product and service. There can be no free lunch on the environment.
It's difficult to protect something if it doesn't have a price.
I am a great supporter of bionics and this diversity in nature, this genetic diversity, is not available for free. We, as industrialized nations, have already sinned enough, and we have significantly reduced biodiversity in our countries. But now we expect the poor, less developed countries of the world to preserve their rainforests, mangrove forests and coral landscapes for us at no charge.
The gains made by better management and technology are still being outpaced by the environmental impacts of population and economic growth. We are on an unsustainable course.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of more than 2,500 scientists) has provided the world community with first class assessments of the soaring temperatures the world is facing, the devastating impacts of these rises and the ways in which we can try and avoid the worst effects of global warming. We now know climate change is real and the hand of humankind in this warming is becoming clearer and clearer.
That's precisely the reason we need less paper and more concrete political decisions - the protection of endangeres species is not some luxury item by Gucci or Hermès, for people who have no problems.
Protecting biodiversity is just as important and critical to the survival of mankind as stabilizing the climate. Species protection and climate are interdependent.
Most of all, Creation must be protected for its own sake, even if we currently assign no value or an incorrect value to it.
We must convince and empower people to adopt the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as their guiding principle.
We have a duty to rescue our closest living relatives as part of our wider responsibilities to conserve the ecosystems they inhabit.
