FACTBOX: U.N. talks seek to safeguard animals and plants

(Reuters) - Governments will meet in the German city of Bonn from May 19 to 30 to discuss how to safeguard the diversity of life from threats such as pollution and climate change.

The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, which meets every two years, will review a goal set at a U.N. Earth Summit in 2002 of slowing the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.

Most experts say the goal is out of reach.

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS?

* Rising human populations, pollution and climate change are threatening to cause the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, according to U.N. studies. About three species an hour may be going extinct.

* No one knows how many species there are. Between 1.7 and 2.0 million species have been identified, ranging from bacteria to blue whales, and the final total could be somewhere between 5 million and 30 million, according to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment by 1,300 scientists.

WHY CARE ABOUT BIODIVERSITY?

* The diversity of agricultural crops is vital for food supplies. People rely on free services provided by nature such as insect pollinators or water purification by forests or wetlands.

* Many rare plants or creatures have unexpected value. The southern gastric brooding frog in Australia, found in the 1980s but now extinct, used to incubate its young in its stomach in a technique that could have held clues to preventing human ulcers. Hoodia, a plant in southern Africa, can act as an appetite suppressant that could help curb obesity.