Source: SciDev.net
The continued loss of biological diversity threatens human health as well as the survival of wild species, warned Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School at the COHAB 2005 conference in August.  If species continue to decline in number at the present rate, pharmaceutical companies will find it harder to develop new drugs and agriculture will lose an irreplaceable source of potential new crops.

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Source: Japan for Sustainability
"BirdBase," a database of information about the distribution of Asian bird species, has now been published on the web. The database was jointly developed by the Hokkaido Institute of Environmental Sciences and the National Government's Science and Technology Agency.