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Global Biodiversity Conference: the Role of Science and Technology in Conservation

6 April 2006

Cape Town - Over 120 biodiversity scientists from across the globe, including academics, experts and students, met in Cape Town yesterday for a two-day Science Symposium organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in conjunction with the Copenhagen-based Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

South Africa is the first African country to host this Symposium since its inception four years ago. This pays tribute to the country’s vast biodiversity wealth and its technological research contributions towards the globally sustainable use of natural resources.

The annual Science Symposium forms part of the GBIF’s ongoing global efforts to find ways of slowing down and eventually curbing the loss of biodiversity through long-term conservation and the sustainable use of biological biodiversity.

In his first public engagement as the new Director-General of the DST, Dr Philemon Mjwara, highlighted the importance of a knowledge-based economy in achieving economic growth: “When you have a knowledge-based economy coupled with natural resource stocks, many developing countries can find themselves riding a huge and dynamic wave of economic growth. Globally, biodiversity already provides an ever-increasing portion of wealth derived from the natural resource-base."

The Symposium explored in detail a number of ways towards better conserving the ecosystem as well as enhancing countries abilities to access and share biodiversity data through international science facilities such as the GBIF. In line with this, the following issues were discussed:

• The role of GBIF in projecting and monitoring climate change impacts on terrestrial biodiversity;
• Efforts towards developing and implementing a global strategy for conservation;
• Biodiversity conservation and sustainable rural livelihoods in marginal environments;
• Biodiversity data acquisition and assessment; as well as
• The potential role for GBIF in developing management policies in African national parks.

GBIF is an international, mega-science facility that aims at making the world’s biodiversity data freely available on the Internet through international collaboration with more than 75 countries. SA became the only African voting participant of the GBIF in 2003 and established the South African Biodiversity Information Facility (SABIF) in 2005 as the national node to this international network and biodiversity inventory.

These data provide the scientific underpinnings for decision-making about the placement of wildlife reserves and national parks, the management of forests and offshore resources, the handling of watersheds and other biodiversity-rich environments, amongst other things.

South Africa is ranked as the third most biologically diverse country in the world, containing between 250 000 and 1 000 000 species of organisms much of which occur nowhere else in the world. While SA occupies about 2% of the world’s land area, it is estimated that the country is home to 10% of the world’s plants and 7% of the reptiles, birds and mammals. The Southern African coast is home to almost 15% of known coastal marine species, providing a rich source of nutrition and supporting livelihoods of coastal communities.

Three globally recognized biodiversity hotspots include the Cape Floristic Region, which falls entirely within SA boundaries; the Succelent Karoo, which SA shares with Namibia; and Maputaland-Pondoland which SA share with Mozambique and Swaziland.

The Science Symposium continues today at the BMW Convention Centre at the Cape Town Waterfront at 10H30. All media is invited to attend.

For media information please contact:

Kristin Klose
Communication, Department of Science and Technology,
Cell: +27 (0) 82 902 9503
Email: kristin.klose@dst.gov.za

or

Nthabi Maoela
Deputy Director: Communciation, Department of Science and Technology
Cell: +27 (0) 73 648 2876
Email: nthabiseng.maoela@dst.gov.za

For more information on GBIF, visit www.gbif.org