UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Tuesday called for rapid global response to protect biodiversity.

"Biodiversity is the foundation of life on earth and one of the pillars of sustainable development," Ban said in a message on the International Day for Biological Diversity.

"However, biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate. This, in turn, is seriously eroding the capacity of our planet to sustain life of earth," he said.

He said recent reports revealed that climate change can exert negative impacts on people's lives and ecosystems for many years to come.

"Those impacts will include the extinction of ever increasing numbers of species, further weakening a number of already fragile ecosystems," he said. "Indeed, the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is an essential element of any strategy to adapt to climate change."

Through the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community is committed to conserving biodiversity and combating climate change, he said.

"The global response to these challenges needs to move much more rapidly, and with more determination at all levels -- global, national and local," he added.

The theme of this year's observance of the International Day for Biological Diversity is "Biodiversity and Climate Change."