Svandís Svavarsdóttir umhverfisráðherra flutti eftirfarandi ávarp á fundi sérfræðinganefndar Bernarsamningsins um líffræðilega fjölbreytni og loftslagsbreytingar í Reykjavík 21. júní 2010.

Chairman of the Bern Convention, dear members of the Group of Experts on Biodiversity and Climate Change under the Bern convention and other guests. I would like to welcome you to this meeting in Iceland which will discuss issues related to the interaction between climate changes and biological diversity. This includes many different aspects of the problem, both globally and on regional scale, such as wildfires, affects of mitigation methods, bio fuel, migratory species, and Mediterranean and island biodiversity just to mention a few.

It is widely recognized that climate changes affects biological diversity and ecosystems in the territory covered by the Bern Convention, just as well as in other parts of the world. However, in recent past the scientific and environment community has had to work very hard to raise awareness and understanding of the consequenses of loss of biodiversity in context with the dangers of climate change. Somehow biodiversity seems not to be as politically sexy as climate changes. This is the reality we face, although it should be accepted that biodiversity and healthy ecosystems are essential for the resilience of societies and our economies.

The goal of halting the rapid loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems and habitats by 2010 is the subject of several key international agreements and is well know to all of you here. In political terms, this commitment represents a radical departure from previous approaches. You will be discussing interactions between the Bern Convention and two of the Rio Conventions at this meeting, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Climate Change Convention. This remins us of the importance to interact and increase the synergies between the various Multilateral Environmental Agreements, specially now that we are already in mid 2010 knowing that we have not been able reach the targets set for 2010 and to halt the loss of biodiversity. The extent and intensity of many human activities is ever-increasing and the objective of halting or stopping the decline of biodiversity after 2010 will require unprecedented efforts, specially in adapting our human activities to the needs of natural systems.

Many different types of policy can affect the resilience of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide. We do also have to keep in mind the interlinkages between decisions taken under different Conventions and try not to contradict implementation of other Conventions, their goals and targets, in our work. Consumption and production patterns are served by ecosystems globally and it is therefore necessary to affect these patterns by promoting individuals, businesses and governments to exert a global reach to the problem.

Much have been done of course, that's no question, and much of it is based on the work done in regime of the Bern convention with its connection for example to the Habitats and Birds directive of the EU. The Natura 2000 and the Emerald networks are significant agreements that have contributed to the protection of biological diversity according to the convention on biological diversity. But all this work can be thrown away if we do not combine it in synergistic way with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this fora I'm specially referring to what mitigation methods we use for example for carbon sequestration and bio fuel production.

The current global economic crisis may temporarily reduce the pressure on our natural resources but it may also reduce funding for nature conservation and increase the call for less stringent environmental rules and regulations, which by the way will not be heard by this minister standing here. But the crises has also brought into sharp focus our need to know more about the true costs and benefits of our biodiversity policies not the least in context with climate change and our use of fossil fuels, which we have been so harshly reminded of by the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. On the other hand nature it self has also reminded us by the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull that we are only a small part of nature despite the great negative effect we seems to be causing us and our future prospects.

But let us not stay with the gloomy site of things and never think for a moment that the mission is impossible. There is a lot of work to be done and I hope you have a meaningful and constructive meeting that will contribute to solving the challenges a head and of course I wish you a wonderful excursion to Eyjafjallajökull and its surroundings on Wednesday.