Australian Bushfires Warns: Biodiversity Needs Urgent Protection | Zhou Jinfeng On Daily Talk with Beijing People’s Broadcasting Station
2020/1/16 14:45:00 本站

On January 10, Dr. Zhou Jinfeng, the Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) was invited to be on the programme Daily Talk of the Beijing People's Broadcasting Station, sharing his views on the cause of Australian bushfires, reflected on biodiversity loss and climate change, and what lesson humans can learn from.

 

More than 20 people are reported died of the wildfires; hundreds of houses are destroyed, and a staggering 10 million hectares have been burned. An unprecedented number of wildfires have posed serious damage to the wildlife, environment and ecological system. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) describes the bushfires as “catastrophic and unprecedented”. Australia has long enjoyed the reputation of its rich wildlife resources. The damage inflicted by the fires is unquantifiable.

 

About the bushfires, biodiversity and climate change, Dr. Zhou summarized as follows:

 

1. To construct Ecological Civilization and fight climate change is a global task shared by all countries. The world is a community of shared life, so every state shoulders the responsibility of fastening its pace to establish the ecological system with the priority of nature and green development.

 

2. The local species and migratory species. Some media tend to focus on local species like Kola and kangaroo when reporting the biodiversity loss caused by the Australia fires. Migratory species should also be valued. For instance, the East Asian-Australian Flyway (EAAF), one of the nine major migratory routes, is home to more than 50 million migratory waterbirds. The bushfires are significantly influencing the migratory birds on the EAAF. It is summer for Australia, and many birds are staying there. We may notice a decreasing number of birds next year.

 

3. Australia has a unique biodiversity. This country ranks ninth in the list of top 17 countries with the most diverse biodiversity across the globe. Generally speaking, the major reason for biodiversity loss lies in great damage to the habitat brought out by human activities. It is the same with the wildfires- climate change contributed by human activities is the core reason.

 

4. People should treat the fires in a comprehensive way. Some conclude the main reason for the Australia wildfires as the idea that humanity should not interfere with bush fire. This is also summarized as the cause of malpractice in putting out fires. In the interview, Dr. Zhou elaborated on how to treat this issue dialectically.

 

5. The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) will be taken place this October in Kunming, China. The dramatic biodiversity loss triggered by the bushfires put the global biodiversity condition under enormous challenges.


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(Photo credit: CBCGDF)


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/10970.html


By / Wang Yanqing