Today marks World Biodiversity Day

Accra, May 22, GNA - The transformation of habitat for human use and increases in overexploitation, including over grazing have led to the degradation of up to 20 per cent of dry land ecosystems, a statement in Accra said on Monday.

The statement signed by Nana Cobbina Darko, Forestry and Biodiversity Programme Officer of Friends of The Earth, Ghana, said with the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity of Dry and Sub-Humid Lands, it was hoped that conservation and sustainable use of the resource would be encouraged.

"It is our collective responsibility to strive to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biological diversity in d Dry lands by the year 2010, and make substantial contribution to poverty reduction, for the sake of life on earth", the statement said.

The statement was issued to mark the International Day for Biological Diversity, falls on May 22 and reflected the declaration of 2006 as the United Nations=92 International Year for Desert and Desertification.

The celebration was commemorated on the theme: "Protecting Biodiversity in Dry Lands." Dry lands, comprising of almost half of the land surface and central to the livelihood of almost two billion people was under threat from a variety of human activities, the statement said.