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Britain is failing to address one of the key commitments it made when
John Major signed the UN Biodiversity Convention at the Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro last year, conservationists claim.

Under the convention, Britain promised to root out policies – in trade
and Third-World aid, for instance – that threaten biological diversity abroad.
Examples of such policies, say con-servationists, include the continued
import of threatened tropical timbers such as Brazilian mahogany, and demands
that poor, environmentally vulnerable countries repay loans.

In a classic case of Whitehall confusion, two groups of civil servants
drafting policy documents in response to the Earth Summit, both claim that
the other will tackle the thorny issue. Britain’s prime response to the
convention will be the publication later this year of its National Biodiversity
Action Plan. But, according to Tony Juniper, biodiversity campaigner for
Friends of the Earth, ‘current drafts of the plan ignore the international
dimension altogether’.

Civil servants appear to be confused about whose responsibility the
issue is. In response to a complaint from Juniper, Roger Bendall at the
Department of the Environment claimed that international issues ‘will be
addressed more fully’ in a separate document outlining the government’s
strategy for sustainable development, another central theme at the Earth
Summit.

Yet a government consultation document on this strategy published recently
claims that ‘the international dimension will be reviewed more extensively
in the UK Biodiversity Plan’.

‘Both plans, it appears, expect the other to deal with these crucial
matters,’ says Juniper. ‘The government does not seem to be in a position
to accept its responsibilities under the inter-national aspects of the Biodiversity
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