CBD CONSIDERS PARTNERSHIPS, PRIVATE SECTOR FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and the urgent need to get on track to achieve the 2010 target of reducing this trend drove delegates at a 5-9 September meeting on implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to consider new options. The Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Review of Implementation (WGRI), which met for the first time in Montreal, Canada, discussed the creation of innovative new methods of ensuring that the CBD's objectives and strategic plan are implemented in practice. Highlighting the importance of cooperation with other actors who impact on biodiversity, the possibility of the creation of a global partnership for biodiversity was complemented with a more short-term request for the Executive Secretary of the CBD to talk to the WTO Secretariat about the possible creation of a memorandum of cooperation between the two institutions. In addition, delegates looked at the potential of enhanced private sector engagement as a mechanism to implement the convention.

Innovative solutions considered

While delegates noted that a voluntary and flexible global partnership for biodiversity could provide a single system of cooperation among different organisations (examples given were the WTO, the UN Forum on Forests, indigenous groups, the FAO and the Commission on Sustainable Development), assist in national implementation and raise the profile of biodiversity in other international fora, they decided as a preliminary step to ask the Executive Secretary of the CBD to liase with other conventions and organisations on implementation and the possibility of developing a joint work programme "such as the global partnership for biodiversity". Delegates described other characteristics of the partnership, including that it should be issue-based and voluntary, and asked the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP-8, March 2006) to mandate a process that would have concrete proposals delivered for COP-10. Delegates also decided to in particular ask the Executive Secretary to liase with the WTO Secretariat to consider options for closer collaboration. The collaboration could include a memorandum of cooperation that promotes cooperation on shared CBD-WTO issues such as observership of the CBD in the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment, access and benefit sharing and incentives. The procedures for regular information exchange between MEA Secretariats and the relevant WTO committees, and the criteria for the granting of observer status, is mandated for negotiations in the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment by paragraph 31 (ii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration. In addition, the relationship between the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) such as the CBD is the subject of negotiations mandated by paragraph 31(i) of the Declaration.

The potential of private sector bodies to assist in the implementation of the CBD was also raised. Further work on tools such as certification schemes based on companies' biodiversity performance; internationally agreed standards on activities that impact biodiversity; biodiversity valuation models; guidelines and tools to assist companies in implementing good practice; and biodiversity offsets could facilitate enhanced private-sector engagement in biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing. However, controversy arose quickly during the exploratory talks on the attractiveness of biodiversity offsets as a means of engaging private sector actors. While the EU, Brazil and Canada supported such offsets -- i.e. allowing businesses to give financial aid to biodiversity conservation efforts to compensate for activities they conduct that are harmful to biodiversity -- Russia objected to the idea. Offsets, it argued, would allow the private sector to cause damage and offset it by providing compensation, without effectively addressing or ameliorating the harmful effects of the business activity. However, the offset option remains at a preliminary stage, although mention was made of the idea in the final recommendations of the meeting. The definition of biodiversity to be used, the nature of the mechanism and the feasibility of such an instrument have yet to be discussed.

Priority of national vs CBD processes in question

Delegates differed on how the WGRI should go about its work and what emphasis it should give to different mechanisms. While developed countries went into the meeting stressing that CBD policy could best be implemented by streamlining and simplification of Convention processes, developing countries said that Convention implementation could only be enhanced by increased assistance and capacity for national implementation was their first priority. Such assistance, they added, must not be overly constrained by unsuitable eligibility criteria. For their part, developed countries said that the streamlining of CBD processes would end overlap amongst decisions, guidance and instruments and release resources that are currently being spent on the CBD's many processes and meetings for national-level concrete implementation.

Although increased national assistance and capacity, procedural streamlining, enhanced cooperation with other organisations and private sector engagement were all welcomed as concrete ways to make the CBD more effective in its work towards its objectives, some delegates also feared that the work load imposed by all these initiatives could just add to the already heavy financial and procedural burdens of the Convention. Nonetheless, it was clear that national initiatives and innovative engagement with other actors, and not just more meetings, would be necessary to meet the CBD's 2010 target.

Background

The WGRI was established by the seventh COP to the CBD in February 2004 with a wide-ranging mandate to address the implementation of the Convention and the CBD's Strategic Plan to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010; to assess the impacts and effectiveness of Convention processes and bodies along with reporting and evaluation processes; to address cooperation with other conventions, organisations and initiatives and stakeholder engagement; and find a means of identifying and overcoming obstacles to the effective implementation of the Convention. The goal of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, which was agreed upon at the Johannesburg Summit in 2002, brought clearly into focus the need to critically assess the extent to which the Convention has been put into practice and what can be done to make it better realise its objectives in the future. This was reinforced by the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which indicated that humans are destroying the planet's ecosystems at unprecedented rates (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 1 April 2005). As a result, expectations were high for the Working Group, with some delegates seeing it as marking a crossroads in the ability of the CBD to make its objectives a reality.

Additional Resources

Daily coverage provided by IISD Linkages, http://www.iisd.ca/biodiv/wgri/

Documents from the meeting are available at http://www.biodiv.org/doc/meeting.aspx?mtg=WGRI-01

ICTSD Reporting; ENB, Vol. 9 No. 327, 12 September 2005.