At the opening of the meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which are taking place from yesterday until February 3 in Granada, and in which the Minister of the Environment, Cristina Narbona, participated, the Curitiba Virtual Conference on Biological Diversity: Towards the achievement of the 2010 target was presented. an instrument that will allow citizen participation in an issue as relevant for the future of the planet as that of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010.

This virtual conference (http://2010.biodiv.org) aims to achieve a commitment from the entire international community, through the contribution of ideas from civil society. The views collected at this conference will be presented to more than one hundred ministers, who are expected to be present on 27 and 28 March this year at the Curitiba International Conference on Biological Diversity, to be held in Brazil.

The six-week virtual conference will run simultaneously in four languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. Discussions will focus mainly on capturing different geographical perspectives, i.e. citizens will be consulted on actions to be taken at the local, regional, national and international levels to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target.