Capacity-building has become one of the key topics in the discussion on the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and has been included among the priority goals of many organizations dealing with conservation issues. Major efforts in the development of new capacities will be required over the coming years if we are to reach the Convention's "2010 target", according to which a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss is to be achieved by the year 2010. This target, which is highly prominent in today's environmental debate, has been adopted at the sixth Conference of the Parties to the CBD and was later endorsed in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.