ABSTRACT
The United Nations (UN) declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity in celebration of life on Earth and the value of biodiversity for our lives. It was also a milestone year for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD): the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (CBD COP-10) took place in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010, and considered what progress had been made towards the 2010 biodiversity target. This target, adopted in 2002, committed the parties to the CBD to achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level by 2010, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth. This target was later endorsed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) as well as the UN General Assembly. In 2004, at the seventh meeting of the CBD Conference of the Parties (COP),
the parties to the CBD adopted a number of sub-targets to clarify the 2010 biodiversity target, and to provide a flexible framework upon which national and/or regional targets may be developed. At the eighth meeting of the COP in 2006, these sub-targets were applied to various biomes, including the marine environment. These targets call for the effective conservation of at least 10 per cent of each of the world’s marine and coastal ecological regions; and for the effective protection of particularly vulnerable marine habitats, such as tropical and cold-water coral reefs, seamounts, hydrothermal vents, mangroves, seagrasses, spawning grounds and other vulnerable marine areas.
