Reports quoting documents leaked ahead of the summit suggest that countries will be asked to sign up to 10 separate goals. These could include a deal on protecting oceans, the establishment of a powerful global agency for the environment, financial support to encourage sustainability for poorer nations and the appointment of an ecological high commissioner.
Earth Summit: Can Rio +20 solve world's environmental problems? - CNN.com - 0 views
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Realistically, the best that can be hoped for is that Rio +20 will be the start of a process that leads to some or all of these goals being met. Few expect hard and fast policies to be put in place after three days of discussion and the likelihood is that participants will sign up to a document committing themselves to further action in the future.
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There are also numerous sticking points. Wealthy and poorer nations are likely to argue over sharing the burden of cutting carbon emissions. There have been concerns over the exclusion of references to basic human rights, such as access to water. Environmental monitoring methods are also expected to spark dissent.
Search for new species - 0 views
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Rap+ director Trond Larsen was recently quoted in this article in Aspire, the business and first class magazine of Etihad Airways (seen by 6 million affluent travellers a year). While the world is preoccupied with species extinctions, new species are being discovered on an almost daily basis. Can these new creatures make a different case for conservation? "The overall goal of the RAP is to guide conservation priorities by exploring and describing poorly known ecosystems," says Larsen. "Without an objective understanding of which species exist and where they live, it is very difficult to make decisions about which places require the greatest conservation investments…" "Knowledge is the strongest tool to ensure the future of life on this planet, yet we still only know about one tenth of the species that occur around us," he says. "Species are disappearing before we are even aware of their existence. Discovering new species and mapping where they occur provides information that is vital in order to monitor how life on Earth is changing, and how to sustain it."
North Kivu rebellion threatens Congo's mountain gorilla tourist trade | Global developm... - 0 views
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The M23 rebellion has forced the park authorities to shut down what was a fast-growing tourism trade. In 2009 the park received 550 visitors; last year 3,000 tourists came to Virunga and that figure was projected to rise to 6,000 in 2012.
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To De Merode's relief, the rebels and government forces this week agreed to allow a team of 45 rangers to search for and monitor the mountain gorillas. The Virunga park authorities said some of these gorillas have not been seen for over 10 weeks. There was further heavy fighting in the area this week, heightening fears for the gorillas' safety.
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"There are around 210 mountain gorillas in the park, which is roughly a quarter of the world's population," he says.
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