The seventh world Conference on biological diversity opened in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, on 9 February. Its 188 participants are the delegates of the States, international organizations and NGOs of the sector that signed the International Convention on Biodiversity. Focal point of the Conference, that will end on 20 February, is the adoption of the necessary, indeed indispensable, measures to curb so-called “loss of biodiversity” at the world level, in other words the reduction in some the extinction – of species of flora and fauna characteristic of the various regions of the earth. The primary objective, on which there already exists basic agreement between the participants, consists in signing an international accord for the definition by 2010 of a “world network of safe refuges and protected zones”. Given that the disappearance of ecosystems from the largest such as that of Amazonia to the smallest, both of marine and mountain type have had and will have a negative impact especially on the poorest populations, whose life and survival are profoundly dependent on the preservation of nature and habitats, the international community is called to pay particular attention to the link that exists between the conservation of biodiversity and the fight against poverty and famine in the world.
