Nearly all the world's countries have kicked off a UN-backed meeting in Geneva aimed at preventing the loss of biodiversity.
The Associated PressReef fish swim above recovering coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia, in October 2019. A UN-backed meeting aimed at preventing the loss of biodiversity got underway Monday in Geneva.
"We have this one goal, which is to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and really to build that shared future to live in harmony with nature in the long term," the convention's executive secretary, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, told reporters Monday.
Mrema conceded in her opening statement that negotiators would be "working in the shadow of a global pandemic and military conflict." However, she called on them to "demonstrate through your actions the power of international co-operation and multilateralism.