Bell Tolls For Biodiversity Benefit-Sharing Treaty

Today the negotiating group on a protocol aimed at stopping biopiracy and rewarding countries providing genetic resources had to admit, hours from the end of the high-level meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), that it has not reached an agreement on the draft text. The president of the convention gave them one more deadline of midnight in Nagoya, Japan, before ministers gather for the last time tomorrow.

Co-chairs of the negotiating group, Fernando Casas of Colombia and Timothy Hodges of Canada, today presented the latest results of the negotiations on a draft CBD protocol on access and benefit sharing and said some issues still were unresolved, such as the scope of the protocol, utilisation and derivatives.

A document will be presented to the plenary tomorrow morning, the Japanese environment minister said, and the COP 10 will conclude by 6:00 tomorrow night.

Separately, the World Wide Fund issued a statement calling for environment ministers to take action on ocean protection, deliver an ambitious biodiversity plan with adequate resources mobilisation and to agree on an ABS protocol.