Africa/Global: Global Meeting on Protecting Biodiversity Begins

"The survival of the human species depends on biological diversity. Without biodiversity, there would be no trees to produce oxygen, no water catchments and no biodegradation, so that organic waste would just accumulate," says Hamdallah Zedan, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. "The services provided by biodiversity are inestimable and yet, because they are free, they are often overlooked, to the point where biodiversity is still being lost at an alarming rate." Zedan is in Kuala Lumpur at the Putra World Trade Centre with more than 2,000 delegates from around the world for the opening of the seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP7).