April 2008: Meetings have been held in Africa and the Pacific as part of regional preparations for upcoming ninth Conference of the Parties (COP 9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
A meeting of African leaders on access and benefit-sharing was held from 10-12 April 2008, in Mahé, Seychelles, as part of preparations for the high-level segment. In his statement to the meeting, CBD Executive Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf underlined that “access and benefit-sharing is a corner stone of the Convention and we are at a pivotal stage in the negotiations of the International Regime. The success of these negotiations depends on the involvement, at the highest level, of decision makers, who have the ability to pull their leverage together to influence the final outcomes of this important process.”
Meanwhile, the Pacific region held a regional preparatory meeting for COP 9 from 13-16 April 2008, in Apia, Samoa. At the meeting, nine Pacific island countries defined their priorities and modalities to work together during CBD COP 9. Priority agenda items include: financial resources and mechanism; agricultural biodiversity; forest biodiversity; invasive alien species; access and benefit sharing; Article 8(j) and related provisions; biodiversity and climate change; protected areas; marine and coastal biodiversity; and island biodiversity.
In Europe, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution on preparations for CBD COP 9 and the fourth Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, to note their deep concern at the continued loss of biodiversity and at the EU’s ever increasing ecological footprint, which extends the impact on biodiversity well beyond EU’s borders. The resolution highlights the need to implement the CBD work programme on protected areas, agree on common principles and criteria for good forest governance, ban all terminator technologies and agree a moratorium on genetically modified trees, and ensure a legally binding liability regime under the Biosafety Protocol.
COP 9 is taking place from 19-30 May, in Bonn, Germany. [Speech of the CBD Executive Secretary at the Africa meeting] [SPREP news release, 25 April 2008] [EP press release, 24 April 2008]