Biodiversity Meet in South Korea

Delegates meeting under the umbrella of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Friday, 17 October closed a two-week long meet held in South Korea after agreeing to a series of 33 decisions. These form a so-called “Pyeong-chang roadmap,” named after the city in which the meetings were held, geared towards enhancing international efforts around biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

The near 3000 delegates that made the trip to the mountains sought to tackle a wide range of issues. These included finance for biodiversity conservation, national biodiversity action plans, access and benefit sharing regarding the use of genetic resources, guidelines for tackling foreign species imported into new environments, and emerging issues such as synthetic biology.

A high-level ministerial segment held towards the end of last week also resulted in a Gangwon Declaration that calls for links between the work of the CBD and the ongoing post-2015 development agenda process.

Conservation organisation WWF also published a study ahead of the meeting suggesting that vertebrate animal populations have declined by around 52 percent over the last 40 years. This includes a 76 percent decline in freshwater species and 40 percent decline in land-based animals.

An estimated US$36-50 billion is currently spent each year on tackling biodiversity challenges across the globe.

Nagoya Protocol

Among the landmark events of the latest CBD meeting was the much-anticipated entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS). A total of 54 parties have now ratified the protocol and last week they held their first Meeting of the Parties (MOP).

Clinched after late-night negotiations at the 2010 CBD meet in Japan, the instrument seeks to flesh out a legally binding framework for determining how users, providers, and stakeholders each access genetic resources and how the benefits derived from their commercialisation are then shared back to provider communities.

Genetic resources are defined by the UN body as genetic material from plants, animals, and microbes that contain the functional units of heredity. These resources, along with biological compounds derived from them, are often heavily used and traded in a range of pharmaceutical, health, cosmetic, and agricultural products.

As a transparency measure, the MOP established an ABS Clearing House that had been in a pilot test phase in recent months. The Clearing House would receive certificates of compliance from competent national authorities of parties to the Nagoya Protocol.

These certificates will indicate when genetic resources have been accessed with permission and under what conditions, helping those researchers involved avoid claims of biopiracy – in other words, when a genetic resource has allegedly been misappropriated.

Invasive alien species

One specific trade-related move at the Pyeongchang meet was an agreement on guidelines to help address the challenges posed by invasive alien species (IAS), specifically in relation to animals traded as pets, for aquariums, as live bait, or as food.

Various forms of fauna and flora are increasingly crossing borders and traded for a range of reasons, finding new homes in foreign habitats and presenting a threat to the ecological balance when they do so. Some estimates pin the damage to the global economy caused by invasive species, for example crop damage due to foreign pests, at US$1.4 trillion.

The new voluntary rules will help parties towards achieving the ninth Aichi target that calls for an identification, control, and eradication of IAS introductions by 2020.

The guidelines fill a gap in the governance of IAS and offer standards that national or relevant authorities could use to develop codes of conduct in this area.

A related decision on the establishment of a Global IAS Information Partnership emphasises the need to work alongside other organisations, such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), recognising several existing organisations and agreements that regulate risks associated with trade in wildlife and plants. The CBD Secretariat is also invited to explore with standard-setting partners, including those recognised by the WTO, ways to identify risks posed by IAS sold via online transactions.