FRANKFURT, Germany: A two-week conference aimed at ensuring the survival of global biodiversity in the face of climate change and pollution gets under way in Germany on Monday.

The protection of flora, fauna and even food sources will be on the agenda of the 191 governments attending the ninth conference of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn.

Officials will also review the goals set in 2002 at the U.N. Earth Summit, which called for slowing the loss of biological diversity by 2010 — a target that critics contend is far out of reach given a growing human population, rising levels of pollution and climate change.

Organizers also hope the conference will help find new ways to ease the rapid rise in food costs, which has sparked violent protests in Haiti and Egypt. There is also concern that unrest could take place elsewhere amid profiteering and hoarding.

Food prices have been driven to record highs recently by a variety of factors, including a spike in the cost of petroleum products, including those used in fertilizers and processing.

There has also been an increase in the price of grain, which is used to produce biofuels and given as food to livestock to satisfy a growing demand for meat in developing countries. The price of rice has more than tripled since January.

"Renewing agricultural diversity of crops and livestock backed by a functional natural support system is the international community's best long-term solution to meet the global food challenge," Ahmed Djoghlaf, the executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said before the conference this week.

He said that while the meeting would focus on a number of issues, including global deforestation and slumping wildlife populations, the fact that prices for wheat, corn and rice are at record highs while food stocks are at historic lows provides a dismal backdrop to the conference.

"Agriculture is considered a prime example of how human activities profoundly impact the ecological functioning of the planet," Djoghlaf said in a statement. "During the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other period in human history.

"Indeed, more land was converted to cropland during the last 50 years than in the previous two centuries."

The financial loss of distinct land and species has been projected to be approximately €2 trillion (US$3.1 trillion), or about 6 percent of the world's gross national product, German weekly Der Spiegel reported in an advance copy of an article that will appear Monday.

Among strategies to crimp those losses is to refocus on reforestation worldwide. Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to increase German funding to augment those efforts.

Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's environment minister, told lawmakers earlier this month that the loss of biodiversity signaled a severe economic threat that was on par with climate change.

He said that "effective measures" had to emerge from the Bonn meeting so as to make a real impact.

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On the Net:

Conference: http://www.cbd.int/cop9