Scientists called on Monday for the creation of a global panel of experts on species loss, warning that the planet was racing towards a man-made extinction crisis. "Biodiversity is being destroyed irreversibly by human activities," said the appeal, made by leading biologists and environmentalists at the start of a conference in Paris on wildlife loss.
The proposal won the immediate endorsement of French President Jacques Chirac, who pledged to promote it at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an offshoot of the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The fate of humanity was bound up with the fate of the environment, the scientists warned.
"The rate at which humans are altering the environment, the extent of those alterations and their consequences for the distribution and abundance of species, ecosystems and genetic variability are unprecedented in human history," they warned.
The millions of different species on Earth are the product of more than three billion years of evolution - "a natural heritage and a vital resource upon which humankind depends on so many different ways."
Almost everywhere, animals and plants are under threat from loss or degradation of habitat, from pollution of the soil, water and the air, from the exhaustion of soils, water tables and rivers by over-exploitation, "and, more recently, signs of long-term climate damage."
The signatories noted that these problems were aired 13 years ago at the Rio Summit.
Even so, but species loss had accelerated without a significant effort being made to brake it.
They called for an intergovernmental panel that would compile "reliable, scientifically validated" information on biodiversity.
The organisation would bring emerging threats to "public and private decision makers in support of intergovernmental negotiations," they said, referring in particular to the CBD.
The appeal was launched at the first day of a conference gathering 1,200 experts and policymakers on species loss. The proposal is expected to be endorsed by the forum when it wraps up on Friday.
Sources said the panel's format would mirror that of a highly successful scientific committee on global warming set up in 1988.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has won plaudits for taking a neutral, science-based approach, issuing reports every four years or so that provide the latest update of knowledge on global warming.
These reports, the last of which was issued in 2001, have powerfully shaped the agenda because they come with the stamp of scientific authority and do not take a political line.
Chirac, in his speech at the conference, urged scientists to set up a "global network of knowledge."
"France will put a proposal to its partners in the Biodiversity Convention for setting up an intergovernment group on biodiversity trends," he said.