biodiversity

Seni Nabou is a political advisor at our Australia-Pacific office, based in Fiji. She is currently part of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan.

By every measurable factor, biodiversity is up the creek with no sign of getting a paddle any time soon. International attempts to reverse the downward trend of species numbers through the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed, and the goals set by the CBD for this year have been missed.

Bio Diversity Incorporated from carleton creek on Vimeo.

Carlton Creek, who submitted a video to our HSBC advert challenge, has also produced this great little film which takes the ongoing discussions about attaching monetary worth to the natural services provided by our planet and turning them on their head. It's a neat little thought experiment into what the sales pitch for a company representing all life on Earth (or 'shareholders') would be like.

Elsewhere, artist and architect Maya Lin (previous work: Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC) is working on a collaborative, multi-media and multi-space project called What Is Missing? The current website highlights species which have been lost or are severely threatened, and if nothing else hovering your mouse over the map markers and hearing a soundscape of endangered creatures is haunting.

Unlike these pelicans, hermit crabs are less obvious victims of the Deepwater disaster (proper crab imagery below the fold, honest) © Magan/Greenpeace

John Hocevar, team leader of the oceans campaign at Greenpeace USA, is currently in Louisiana helping with Greenpeace's response to the BP oil spill. Here's his latest report from the centre of the ever-growing disaster.

Greetings from Grand Isle, Louisiana, one of the growing number of places unlucky enough to win a "heavily oiled" classification on the government maps tracking the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite BP's efforts to keep it under wraps, we're here to document the impacts of the spill. The public has a right - and a responsibility - to know the true cost of our continued reliance on offshore oil, and fossil fuels in general.

The Chinese river dolphin is just one of the thousands of species lost in recent times (© Idolector)

The great Douglas Adams once said: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." He was no doubt talking about writing deadlines but another deadline is fast approaching, one Adams would have been very interested in and one which is far more significant than whether a manuscript gets delivered on time.

Back in 2002, parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - or in other words, most nations on the planet - agreed on a target to stem the loss of biodiversity by 2010, which by no coincidence is also the International Year of Biodiversity. There are still more than six months to go before that deadline officially expires but the results of the global efforts already being called and it's not good news.

Charismatic megafauna at play. Did we get your attention?

The word 'biodiversity' is often bandied about as shorthand for 'lots of lovely animals and plants'. We probably think of African plains teeming with herds of antelopes, zebra and wildebeest, a jungle cacophonous with crickets, monkeys and birds, or perhaps a coral reef that looks like a still from Finding Nemo.

But that's because most of us are a little shallow when it comes to the species we co-inhabit this planet with. We get overexcited by the big things, the cuddly things, and the wow! things.

Click on the map to see details of each region

We are destroying the world's precious ancient forests at an unprecedented rate. An area of natural forest the size of a soccer pitch is cut down every two seconds.