BONN, Germany (AFP) — A major UN meeting on biodiversity was in its last day of talks on Friday amid a flurry of last-minute decisions aimed at braking the destruction of the world's ecosystems.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the 12-day conference was set to be a "real success."
After "two or three minor questions" are resolved, "we will have concluded everything successfully -- nobody expected that," he said.
Green groups were critical, though, slamming the likely outcome as falling far short of what was needed to protect the planet's ecosystems and human beings who depend on them.
Gabriel, who hosted the 12-day conference of 6,000 delegates from 191 countries, hailed decisions that could lead to the establishment of deep-sea nature preserves and a preliminary framework for establishing standards on biofuels.
He also pointed to more funding for forest protection, the creation of new nature preserves, and a moratorium on fertilizing the ocean with chemicals to combat climate change as positive steps.
"Of course we achieved less than we should have given the dimension of the problems," he said. "Achieving unanimity among 191 states is difficult."
But environmental organisations said that very few concrete steps had been taken to halt deforestation and massive species loss, or to protect the interests of indigenous peoples.
"I fear for the future of the Convention unless something rather dramatic happens to it," said Gordon Shepard, policy director for the World Wildlife Fund, which participated in the talks.
Shepard applauded initiatives by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bosnia to create tens of millions of hectares (acres) of nature preserves.
"But you cannot save the world in a piecemeal way. Protected areas require a global approach, and global funding," he said.
He called on the European Union to push before the end of the meeting Friday for hard targets and timelines to fund such projects.
Earlier in the week German Chancellor Andrea Merkel pledged 500 million euros (785 million dollars) before 2013, and an equal amount annually thereafter, but other major economies have yet to follow suit.
"The UN biodiversity summit has only confirmed the indifference of the international community when it comes to protecting forests, protecting the climate and conserving biodiversity," said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace.
An agreement on logging worked to the advantage of the timber industry, and another calling for "thorough analysis" before the planting of genetically-modified trees "is a bad compromise that lets countries do what ever they want," said Kaiser, an expert of biodiversity and forests.
Scientists say that species are becoming extinct at a dizzying rate -- between 100 and 1,000 times the natural pace of extinction.
One in four mammals, one bird in eight, one third of all amphibians and 70 percent of plants are under threat.
Development economist Pavan Sukhdev handed the conference a preliminary report in which the lost of the benefits of biodiversity are put at 3.1 trillion dollars a year, or six percent of the planet's gross national product.
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