BIODIVERSITY: International Conference Enters Home Stretch

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 14 1996 (IPS) - Debate on the question of project funding held up final negotiations on Thursday at the Third Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which closes here Friday after 15 days of deliberations.

The Convention signed during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro is based on the recognition that 90 percent of the planet’s biological wealth is found in the developing world, while the technology and financial resources needed to tap it are in the industrialised North.

But four years after Rio, the progress made towards curbing the degradation of ecosystems and threats to plant species and genetic resources has been scarce.

Nor have significant steps been taken in terms of project funding and the transfer of information and technology.

Most of the advances have been seen in the development of national strategies and plans for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. But many countries, especially the poorest, have lagged behind in implementing such programmes.

Notwithstanding the at times cumbersome bureaucracy slowing down the decision-making, and the difficulties facing countries with scarce financial resources, the representatives of the 162 signatories reached accords in some 20 areas for implementing the Convention’s aims through concrete measures, laws and policies.

The objectives laid out by the Convention are the conservation of biodiversity, its sustainable use, and the just and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from access to genetic resources.

It is the third aim that has presented the greatest problems in terms of getting past mere lip-service from governments.

At the close of the conference on Friday, participating environment ministers will approve a series of commitments and a declaration to be presented to a 1997 Extraordinary Session of the U.N. General Assembly which will evaluate the concrete actions carried out in compliance with Agenda 21.

Agenda 21 is the action plan that emerged from the 1992 Earth Summit, which includes special recommendations on biological diversity.

The signatories also agreed to promote and facilitate scientific and technological cooperation towards the least developed nations, through specific financial support for practical courses, databases and private sector participation.

The documents approved urge governments to send the Executive Secretariat of the Convention all national, regional and sectorial information on laws, policy measures and guidelines governing access to genetic resources and profit-sharing.

Those elements will be used to draw up a report to be presented at the Fourth Conference in 1998, which will take place in Montreal, Canada.

The approved texts also recommend programmes for promoting sustainable agriculture, and measures to mitigate the negative effects of agricultural practices on biodiversity.

They propose a number of initiatives for countries to make progress on laws or measures regarding the clause in the Convention which demands that indigenous communities and their traditional knowledge on biological diversity be respected, through the sharing of profits reaped from such knowledge.

Finally, the Executive Secretariat asked to be sent all case studies on the impact of intellectual property rights on biodiversity, including cases on the recognition of indigenous knowledge, which it will circulate through databases.

The signatories had already gathered twice — in the Bahamas in 1993 and Indonesia in 1994. But this month’s conference was the first to undertake progress in applying the Convention’s principles as its main challenge.

While nations from the developing South acknowledged that implementation has lagged, they blamed industrialised countries’ failure to live up to their commitments to provide financial and technological aid to poorer countries.

The representative of the Group of 77 (which groups 132 developing nations) and China, Costa Rican Environment Minister Rene Castro, cautioned that the North-South alliance is fragile today due to the snail’s pace at which technology and funds have been transferred.

The hottest debate broke out in the commission in charge of financial mechanisms for implementing the Convention, which the day before the end of the conference still had some bracketed clauses.

The commission was working on a memorandum of understanding that would allow the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) to continue to act as the Convention’s interim financial mechanism, as long as it followed the priorities set by signatory nations.

It also drew up a project evaluation mechanism and orientation guidelines offering GEF an instrument that would provide it with information on the priorities of the developing nations that receive funding from the multilateral body.