Germany pledges 500 million euros to project world forests

Berlin (ANTARA News/Xinhua) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged on Wednesday to provide 500 million euros (about 760 million U.S. dollars) over the next four years to help protect the world`s forests and other habitats.

Addressing a high-level meeting of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Merkel also said that Germany would increase its funds for forest protection to 500 million euros annually from 2013.

"I am convinced that we need a complete change of course in the preservation of species," she said.

The ninth conference of the Conference of the Parties to the U. N. Convention on Biological Diversity opened in Bonn on May 19 to try to pay the way for an agreement on protecting diverse species threatened by climate change and pollution.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that delegates to the conference have set an agenda for further discussions in an attempt to reach a global agreement on saving biodiversity. A binding biodiversity treaty is scheduled to be negotiated in Japan in 2010.