On Friday (May 21), the Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira announced that in July, in preparation for the fourth meeting of the BASIC (group formed by Brazil, South Africa, India and China), in Rio de Janeiro, debates on Biodiversity and Climate will be promoted in Rio and in São Paulo. "It is time to mobilize society around this theme", said the minister.
On the same day, Izabella launched the online version of the List of Species of the Brazilian Flora, in a ceremony at the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro (JBRJ). The JBRJ was appointed by the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) to coordinate, through the National Center for Flora Conservation (CNCFlora), the work of preparing the list, which involved about 400 Brazilian and foreign taxonomists aimed at identifying and characterizing species of native plants nationwide.
The list has 41,123 species of plants. "It is with satisfaction that, within the celebrations of the International Day for Biological Diversity, we present an updated list of the Brazilian flora, which represents an advance in achieving the goals proposed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and an improvement on the knowledge about our flora", said Izabella.
For the general coordinator of the project, Rafaela Campostrini Forzza, this is just the beginning. "The idea is to update the list periodically to include new species and taxonomic changes. We hope this site also makes available other information about the flora in the near future."
In the same event at the Botanical Garden, the Ministry has launched the Portuguese version of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO3), a report made by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The document will guide discussions among the participating countries in the international meeting scheduled for October in Japan.
According to the document, the loss of global biodiversity is reaching a level almost irreversible. The document released by the United Nations on May 10 says that no country has fully complied with the goals of reducing biodiversity loss between 2002 and 2010.
"The news is not good. But we must emphasize that Brazil has made great advances, for example the fall of 75% in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest", said the secretary for Biodiversity Conservation of the MMA, Bráulio Dias.
For the 10th Conference of the CBD, to be held in October in Nagoya (Japan), signatory countries should define new targets for reducing biodiversity loss in the coming years.
Redes Sociais