U.N. biodiversity chief seeks Nagoya protocol on genetic resource use
The head of a U.N. treaty on conserving biological diversity wants to see the adoption of a new protocol on the use of genetic resources in such sectors as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, horticulture, cosmetics and biotechnology at an upcoming meeting in Nagoya slated for October
Kyodo News International in iStock Analyst | March 04, 2010
In a recent interview with Kyodo News in Tokyo, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said he is hopeful that more than 190 parties to the treaty will agree in Nagoya on a ''framework protocol with a clear road map'' on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from their utilization.
The envisioned protocol should address how to handle ''complex issues of definition, compliance, intellectual property rights and certificate of origin,'' he said.
The access and benefit-sharing issue, known as ABS, has been a bone of contention between developed and developing countries in negotiations under the 1992 convention. In the past, businesses and individuals from rich nations have often taken genetic resources and knowledge from communities in poor nations and monopolized the benefits.
The head of the Montreal-based convention secretariat also said the Oct. 18-29 conference in the central Japan city is expected to agree on post-2010 targets on the state of biodiversity, as countries are set to miss the existing goal of achieving ''a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss'' by 2010.
Djoghlaf told a Tokyo seminar earlier in the week that the world has lost biodiversity ''on a systematic basis'' and now faces a ''unique and unprecedented crisis,'' describing what happens now as a ''global mass extinction of species.''
Up to 30 million living species are believed to inhabit the planet but an estimated 40,000 are going extinct each year, due mainly to human activities such as overfishing, deforestation and pollution. Moreover, climate change has become ''one of the main driving forces behind the unprecedented loss of biodiversity,'' he said.
Djoghlaf, who is Algerian, said in the interview that heads of states are scheduled to meet in September at the U.N. headquarters in New York to address the challenges of accelerated biodiversity loss, and that he expected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to chair a panel on the issue to ''solicit the views and visions'' of leaders before the Nagoya conference.
He also urged Hatoyama to convince U.S. President Barack Obama that the United States should join the convention, as it will be the only nation among U.N. members not to be party to the treaty.
Washington has not ratified the convention due to fears that it would harm the nation's biotechnology industry, but Djoghlaf said such a stance is based on misunderstandings and he believes many of these have been cleared up through negotiations with U.S. officials.
He pointed out that the United States is responsible for about 25 percent
of consumption and waste generated in the world and that the nation will be ''impacted by the lack of progress'' in taking care of biodiversity.
''We cannot solve the problem of this biodiversity without the U.S. because we need definitively to change our pattern of production and consumption,'' Djoghlaf said. ''We need to live in harmony with nature.''
The biodiversity chief lamented that recently human beings have lost touch with nature, as more and more people live in urban areas. He was also alarmed by children who live ''behind computers'' and are ''very disconnected with nature.''
''Children of today will be the citizens of tomorrow. Our children don't know today the value of nature because they are very far from nature,'' he said. ''You cannot protect something you don't know.''
Noting that the United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity and coined the slogan ''biodiversity is life,'' Djoghlaf stressed the importance of maintaining the variety of species.
''Biodiversity is the air that we breathe, is the food that we eat, is the protein that we eat, is the marine (species), is the fish, it's everything. Without biodiversity, you would never be able to sustain your life on Earth,'' he said.
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