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BIODIVERSITY: Billions Needed to Win Race Against Species Loss

Haider Rizvi

CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 31 2006 (IPS) - A two-week international conference on biodiversity here came to an end Friday on a mixed note of hope and despair, with some delegates describing the outcome as a moment to celebrate, but others expressing disappointment with the slow pace of progress in talks on how to implement decisions made some 14 years ago.

“The decisions we have made are relevant and significant,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva told reporters, even as talks continued late into the day on certain issues. “We have made decisions in Curitiba which will contribute to the progress made on the implementation of this convention.”

The 1992 U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity calls for significant reductions in biodiversity loss within the next four years. But the 188 countries that have signed the agreement have been unable to resolve their differences on a variety of issues concerning its implementation.

During the past two weeks, one of the issues that proved most contentious was the demand from developing countries for the establishment of an international regime to regulate fair and equitable benefit-sharing of biological resources. Certain industrial nations remained reluctant to accept this proposal, but now they have partially agreed.

After days of tough negotiations, delegates agreed to set a deadline for further talks before 2010, which they have declared as “The International Year of Biodiversity”.

The issue was raised by Brazil and other nations which argue that multinational corporations are exploiting biological resources for profits without giving any share to local communities and indigenous people.

“That is a step forward. Before that there was not even a deadline,” Ahmad Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the convention, told IPS.

“We have made significant progress on this issue,” added Silva. “We have the conference text ready. We should be celebrating.”

Another contentious issue that the conference has settled, at least temporarily, is the testing and sale of sterile seed technology, dubbed by critics “suicide seeds”. Last week, all delegates agreed that a moratorium since 2000 should continue to remain in place and that more research is needed on the impacts of genetically modifying living organisms.

The proposal to ban sterile seed technology, which forces farmers to purchase new seeds for each planting, has been resisted by New Zealand, Australia and Canada, three countries that environmental activists have charged are “puppets of the U.S. delegation”. Since the U.S. is not a party to the convention, its officials were allowed to join the deliberations as observers.

Many believe that the conference might have failed to address the issue of “suicide seeds” if delegates had not faced enormous pressure from civil society and indigenous rights groups. Every day, Brazilian peasant groups rallied by the thousands in front of the conference to demand a ban on the marketing of sterile seeds.

Brazilian officials who took part in the negotiations said while further talks are required on certain important issues, such global indexing of species, agro-biodiversity protection measures and efforts to involve the private sector, the parties took as many as 30 decisions.

These include a pledge to create major new marine reserves in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, and a commercial fishing ban in a vast area surrounding the Phoenix Islands, located about halfway between Fiji and Hawaii, which covers nearly 120,000 square kilometres and is home to 120 species of coral and 520 species of fish.

The governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia also pledged to support the World Wildlife Fund’s “Heart of Borneo” project, which focuses on protecting one of the most important centres of biological diversity in the world, including approximately 220,000 square kilometres of equatorial forests and numerous wildlife species.

Despite their upbeat mood, however, both de Silva and Djoghlaf appeared frustrated on the question of funding. “We are trying intensely to negotiate with those who can help,” Silva said.

The Global Environment Facility, which is jointly run by the World Bank, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), expects to have three billion dollars to distribute among countries that are in dire need of recovering from biodiversity losses.

The international environmental group Greenpeace estimates that effective implementation of the convention requires additional funding of at least 20 billion dollars. The group has described the conference as “a missed opportunity and a major failure”.

“The Convention on Biological Diversity is like a ship drifting without a captain to steer it,” said Martin Kaiser, Greenpeace political advisor on forests. “The negotiations have failed to chart a course to stop biopiracy, provide additional financing for protected areas, establish marine reserves on the high seas and to ban illegal logging and trade.”

For his part, Djoghlaf hopes that the Group of Eight industrialised countries – Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia – will agree to provide additional funding at its forthcoming meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Regarding the role of the U.S., Djoghlaf said soon there will be 190 signatories to convention, with both Iraq and East Timor indicating their willingness to join. “This convention is universal,” he added. “No country can afford to have an observer status.. Here we are missing the most powerful country.”

During the two-week conference, youth volunteers here worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to assist the more than 4,000 delegates who were visiting from around the world. Commenting on the conclusion of the conference, Aliny Maldonado Dos Santos, a student of environmental sciences, said: “The delegates could have done more, but I think this conference was very meaningful for me and for my country. I worked as a volunteer. It gave us hope for a better life on the planet.”

The next conference on biodiversity will take place in Germany in 2008.