EU postpones by a decade plans to stop extinctions

Mar 15, 2010, 14:45 GMT

Brussels - European Union environment ministers gave themselves an extra decade to prevent the extinction of plant and animal species after admitting Monday that there was no hope of meeting this year's original deadline.

The EU had vowed to stop its rare species being wiped out - a process euphemistically known as 'biodiversity loss' - by 2010. But studies show that such a pledge is now set to fail.

Ministers are 'seriously concerned' that the 2010 target has not been met and that 'biodiversity loss continues at an unacceptable rate entailing very serious ecological, economic and social consequences,' a formal ministerial declaration said.

The EU therefore agrees on 'a headline target of halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020,' the declaration said.

To do so, the EU will have to bring in much stricter rules on protecting rare species and habitats and enforce them much more efficiently, ministers agreed.

The bloc 'will only achieve this vision and headline target if the means match the objectives,' the statement said.

According to a recent international report on the economics of biodiversity, known as TEEB, the extinction of animals and plants and the destruction of their habitats costs around 50 billion euros (69 billion dollars) a year worldwide.