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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which of her Department's publications have drawn on information produced by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre at Cambridge; and if she will make a statement. [207470] Mr. Morley: Work carried out by the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is used by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to inform and support discussions in key environment fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity. In particular, the Centre has produced papers, to help focus international discussions on the implementation of the biodiversity target adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. This included documentation for an international meeting in London in May 2003--'2010--The Biodiversity Challenge'. The UK's delivery plan on biodiversity `Beyond Johannesburg: Delivering our International Biodiversity Commitments', published by Defra in May 2004, uses statistics on biodiversity loss produced by UNEP- WCMC. Defra reports to the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (CITES) and other international species conservation conventions also include much information that has been drawn from UNEP-WCMC's databases. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, to which the UK Government has contributed, draws upon significant amounts of published work by UNEP- WCMC.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

207470; 429 c730-1W;429 c734W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Biodiversity Nature conservation World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk