I welcome this opportunity to speak to you. It is appropriate, because over a hundred of the Parties to the Convention are also IUCN Members at the State or Government agency level, while our 685 NGO Members worldwide and our 8,000 expert volunteers bring considerable expertise and experience to this conference table. May we suggest, with some temerity, that the door also be opened wider in future to representatives of those sectors which manage or use much of the world's natural resources - the so-called civil society, including indigenous peoples and the private sector? A net benefit to all would result.

It is all too easy to be a doom-sayer at this moment in global evolution:

• a Red List of Threatened plants just published by our Species Survival Commission found that over 12 per cent of the world's plants are under threat of extinction;
• add to that the findings of the Red List of Threatened Animals that a quarter of the world's mammals and amphibians, and a third of fish species are also threatened; and
• consider also the major fires still blazing in the forests of several regions, impacting in an as yet unquantified way on biodiversity, particularly we suspect on slow growing tropical species of trees.

There is naught for our comfort in all this. But the scientific findings should help us concentrate our minds on what we can do together to address the consequential problems. Effective action at the national level is a priority. IUCN - The World Conservation Union has been given many opportunities - and considerable resources - by Parties to help support national implementation of the Convention in areas like biodiversity strategizing and legislation drafting and a range of thematic sectors. There are some good positive results from this joint action, not least at the community level. But it is not enough.

We would like to work with the Parties to give added attention, for example, to in situ conservation. More focused work is needed on protected areas, invasive species, ecosystem restoration and prevention - or at least amelioration of the effects - of the forest fires I have just mentioned. We are pleased to be starting to work with the new Executive Director of UNEP, our colleagues in WWF and components of the World Bank Group on addressing the underlying causes of the fires.

A good deal of new thinking is going on about the role of protected areas. They are no longer seen as little islands of protection but as a network of land and/or waters managed for conservation purposes and linked closely into sustainable development policies. This new approach is consistent with CBD objectives. But protected areas need to be addressed as a specific item in the COP's longer term programme of work in order to stimulate production of the necessary guidance and tools for the Parties. We thus call on this Conference to request SBSTTA4 to develop a work programme on protected areas for adoption by the next COP and would be delighted to collaborate in developing such a programme, working with the relevant agreements and international organizations. In this, as in other fields, communicating our collective messages to the wider group of biodiversity users is a vital activity not an optional add-on.

COP should also consider addressing alien invasive species in its longer term programme of work, possibly for the sixth Conference. Because this is a major factor in biodiversity loss, it would be prudent for Parties to take measures quickly related to invasive species, including developing regulatory measures for high-risk activities such as agriculture, afforestation, biological control, and integrated pest management.

May we suggest that linking work on alien invasive species with Article 8(g) on genetically modified organisms provides the COP with an opportunity to encourage the development of holistic approaches to the assessment and release of such organisms. Linking the two approaches would also allow the COP to develop the narrow treatment of "biosafety" of GMOs into the broader and potentially more significant concept of "biosecurity".

Sustainable funding is an essential part of in situ conservation. A range of mechanisms to generate additional financial resources for in situ conservation is needed, involving elements such as the private sector. We propose that an expert group be established to provide advice to the Parties on how to make progress on this front.

May we conclude by noting that further briefing on all items on your agenda may be found in the collective brief available from IUCN staff and by expressing the hope that you will avoid creating new institutional layers in the decision-making of the COP, such as a Subsidiary Body on Implementation. Your longer-term strategy should, we suggest, consider the three objectives of the Convention in an integrated manner, having each COP focus on specific tools and mechanisms for their implementation. May we say finally that more action-oriented decisions from COP - as well as monitoring and evaluation mechanisms - are required to achieve increased conservation, sustainable use and benefit sharing from biological resources. Let us work together to achieve these imperatives.