In ratifying the Convention of Biological Diversity following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the United Kingdom is one of the 170 nations which has committed itself to the principles of sustainability and the conservation of biological diversity.

The 'Biodiveristy Convention' was just one of a number of globally important outcomes from the Earth Summit: others included a commitment to sustainable development, and the intergration of environmental issues across a range of activities through Agenda 21. These commitments reflect a world-wide concern that human activities are destroying or irreversibly changing natural ecosystems on an unprecedented scale, resulting in escalating losses of species and their natural habitats.

Signatories recognised that action must be taken to halt these losses, which have been occurring at local as well as global levels (over 100 species have become extinct in the UK alone this century). It was also agreed that each country must develop national strategies, plans and programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

The UK response to Rio

In response to the Biodiversity Convention, the UK Government published a report entitled Biodiversity: The UK Action Plan in 1994. The overall goal of the UK Action Plan is:

To conserve and enhance biological diversity within the UK, and to contribute to the conservation of global biodiversity through all appropriate mechanisms."

To oversee the implementation of the UK Action Plan, the Government set up a Biodiveristy Steering Group. The main functions of this group are:

l To develop a series of national biodiversity action plans covering a range of key habitats and species;

l To develop a national biodiversity database;

l To put forward proposals for raising public awareness;

l To make recommendations for action at a local level through the production of local biodiversity action plans.