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CBD Daily News Headlines
CBD News (What's new at the CBD)
- Interview with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Dr. Cristiana Pasca Palmer
- Fifteen years ago, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity entered into force aiming to ensure the safe handling, transfer and use of living modified organisms (or LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology.
- Germany has published the first report on the utilization of genetic resources through the Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) Clearing-House by issuing a checkpoint communiqué concerning research on ants from South Africa. This was rapidly followed by checkpoint communiqués from Malta and Qatar.
- Inspired by discussions on the possibilities of transformational change, a keynote address by Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, and a celebration of indigenous culture, more than 1,000 delegates from around the world concluded two critical meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada.
- A Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) geared towards enhancing cooperation between the Secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was signed today on the margins of the second meeting of CBD's Subsidiary Body on Implementation, being held in Montreal, Canada.
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
The Convention on Biological Diversity is the result of an agreement by world leaders on a comprehensive strategy for "sustainable development" while ensuring that we leave a healthy and viable world for future generations.
One of the key agreements adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was this Convention of Biological Diversity. This pact among the vast majority of the world's governments sets out commitments for maintaining the world's ecological underpinnings as we go about the business of economic development. The Convention establishes three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources (including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding).
During the Earth Summit also the Convention on Climate Change was signed.
The CBD entered into force on 29 December 1993, 90 days after the 30th ratification. At the moment there are more than 190 'Parties' to the Convention; 168 countires have signed the convention. The Netherlands ratified the CBD in 1994.
The text of the convention.
The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a supplementary agreement to the Convention known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety on 29 January 2000. The Protocol seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.
Furthermore party's are invites to establish a website to exchange information about their Biodiversity Policy. This is kallend the Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) genoemd. This webportal (biodiversity-CHM.NL) is the Dutch contribution to the Clearing House Mechanism.
The following websites provide more detailed information about the CBD:
- Website of the CBD: Here information can be found on the Convention as presented by the CBD Secretariate
- Website of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin on Biodiversity: Here information can be found of the reporting services by ENB of the international meetings related to the Convention.