Saving vanishing wildlife 'as big a challenge as climate change'

Governments are meeting in Nagoya, Japan, in a bid to agree 20 new targets to conserve nature and tackle problems including pollution, invasive species, destruction of habitat, perverse subsidies and over-consumption of resources such as fish in order to address the threats to life on Earth.

The targets also call for a greater proportion of land and sea to be designated as protected areas.

The conference comes after scientists revealed that previous targets to slow the rate of losses in biodiversity by 2010 had not been met – and that some of the problems driving declines in wildlife were getting worse.

Jane Smart, director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) biodiversity conservation group, said: "We're at the point of no return in so many areas of the natural world, losing countless numbers of species and the essential services of the natural environment in which we live.

"The conference in Nagoya could be the last chance to come up with a new plan that works – there is no Plan B and certainly no Planet B."

Professor Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said the talks needed to reaffirm global commitments to substantially reducing the loss of biodiversity in the world.

"It's not as though we don't know what to do – it's really important that the meeting affirms a commitment to caring for biodiversity and sustainable use of resources," he said.

Comparing action on protecting wildlife, including plants, with the fight against global warming, he said: "Biodiversity loss is as big or even more significant long term challenge to us – extinction is final, whereas with climate change we have the prospect of getting on top of it if we change our behaviour. Despite Jurassic Park, our prospects in our present state of knowledge of restoring extinct species is zero."

But climate change and biodiversity loss could be tackled at the same time, for example by addressing deforestation – which contributes almost a fifth of global greenhouse gases and destroys important habitat.

And while he acknowledged the larger species such as tigers and pandas tended to get more attention than plants, he said that in order to keep such animals alive in the wild, there was a need to ensure their habitat survived – which was all about protecting plants.

Kew is working with partners around the world in projects such as the Millennium Seed Bank to protect diversity and restore lost habitats, he added.

"If you reflect where plants fit in day-to-day modern life, every breath, the food we eat, the clothes on your back, medicines – if you have a headache and take an aspirin these are plant-derived products – timber construction, cultural artefacts such as musical instruments, the list goes on and on."

He said diversity of plants was important in a changing world, where climate change was happening, human numbers were increasing and issues such as food security were rising up the agenda.

But he raised concerns that governments may "falter" at this point, deciding stopping losses of wildlife was too hard, and species would be allowed to vanish, which would be damaging for humans.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, who is attending the talks, said: "Nature provides countless valuable services for free, but we need to take steps now to protect and improve it before we lose these benefits for good.

"Damaging nature is not just an environmental issue; it's also an economic one and if we get it wrong, growth will be curtailed.

"This is why we must work to reach a new framework to reduce the loss of species at the Nagoya conference that is realistic and achievable."