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Published online 13 August 2008 | Nature 454, 809 (2008) | doi:10.1038/454809a
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Biodiversity body 'lacks science'
Swedish researchers criticize credentials of convention.
Swedish researchers have launched a scathing attack on the scientific credentials of an international advisory body on biodiversity, warning that its effectiveness is being undermined by the increasing dominance of politicians and professional negotiators.
Their concerns about the work of the scientific body that advises the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are widely shared, the convention's own executive secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf, has told Nature.
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Biodiversity is being highjacked by business and politics in a similar manner to 'sustainable Development' and 'Sustainability'. It can then be manipulated to satisfy stakeholders and maintain business as usual. D. Whatling
It is probably widely considered, especially outside the scientific communities, that the conservation of biodiversity is simply to allocate as much as money for as many as biological species by building nature reserves or animal/plant genebanks. In this sense, the paticipation of politicians and professional negotiators would be very crucial. However, the biodiversity conservation is an interdisciplinary field with biological, sociological, and economic dimension and, thus, the biodiversity body actually needs not only 'government representatives ', but also 'scientists'.
It is interesting to note that some developing countries appear to have more scientific input into the CBD than developed countries. I take Indonesia as example having five scientists as national representatives, whereas Australia has none and New Zealand has just one. This partly reflects the "political and professional negotiator" bias, but more the state of science in the political market place. Scientists are no longer able to speak for themselves, we have to get negotiators to do it for us. That privilege has gone. I'm moving to Indonesia!