A/HRC/34/49 important components of biodiversity and activities that have (or are likely to have) significant adverse effects (art. 7) and pursuing measures for in-situ and ex-situ conservation (arts. 8 and 9). In addition, the Convention recognizes that the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with each national Government and sets out provisions for agreement to such access (art. 15). The broad scope of the Convention is matched by its near-universal membership: it has 196 parties, including virtually every country in the world except the United States of America, which has signed but not ratified it. 41. In 2002, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention adopted a strategic plan “to effectively halt the loss of biodiversity”. 58 The parties clearly described the stakes, emphasizing that biodiversity “is the foundation upon which human civilization has been built”. They stated that “the rate of biodiversity loss is increasing at an unprecedented rate, threatening the very existence of life as it is currently understood”, undermining sustainable development and constituting “one of the great challenges of the modern era”.59 To meet this existential threat, the parties adopted a rather modest goal: not to halt, much less reverse, the loss of biodiversity, but only to significantly reduce the rate of loss by 2010. To that end, the strategic plan included 11 goals and 21 subsidiary targets. For example, goal 2 was to “promote the conservation of species diversity” and target 2.1 was to “restore, maintain, or reduce the decline of populations of species of selected taxonomic groups”.60 42. In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment explained not just how necessary ecosystem services are to human well-being, as described in section II of the present report, but also how rapidly humans were destroying biodiversity. Of the 24 ecosystem services it reviewed, 15 were being degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture fisheries, protection against erosion and the purification of air and water. The Assessment reported that humans had increased the rate of extinction of species as much as 1,000 times over background rates, that 10-30 per cent of mammal, bird and amphibian species were threatened with extinction and that at least one quarter of important commercial fish stocks were being overharvested. It also warned that the harm to ecosystems was increasing the likelihood of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes, such as the creation of “dead zones” in coastal waters and the collapse of fisheries. It underscored that the harmful effects of ecosystem degradation “are being borne disproportionately by the poor, are contributing to growing inequities and disparities across groups of people, and are sometimes the principal factor causing poverty and social conflict.”61 43. In 2010, the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity published Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, which showed that States had utterly failed to meet even the modest aim of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss. None of the 21 subtargets had been achieved and the report identified significant progress towards only four. 62 The secretariat found multiple indications of the continued loss of biodiversity: genetic diversity in crops and livestock continued to decrease; assessed species were on average moving closer to extinction; and natural habitats, especially wetlands, salt marshes and coral reefs, continued to decline in extent and integrity. Although there was progress in some regions in slowing the rate of loss of tropical forests and mangroves, on the whole the degradation and fragmentation of ecosystems continued to lead to the loss of ecosystem services. 63 58 59 60 61 62 63 14 Decision VI/26, annex, para. 2. Ibid., paras. 3-4. Decision VII/30, annex II. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis, pp. 1-6. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 (Montreal, 2010), pp. 18-19. Ibid., p. 9.