The agreement that was recently concluded at the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at Nagoya in Japan will go down in history as the second most important global initiative, after the CBD itself, in protecting the Earth’s fast-depleting biodiversity. This is vital for sustaining life on the planet. The ball was set rolling way back in 1992 with the adoption of the CBD at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It set three broad goals — conservation of biodiversity; its sustainable use; and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from its use with rightful owners of genetic resources. However, the credit for concretising these goals, by fixing time-bound targets and ensuring funding for safeguarding genetic resources will truly go to the Nagoya accord arrived at after 15 days of bitter haggling by environment ministers of 193 countries. The pact binds the countries to reduce the rate of loss of species — an incredible 5,000 to 30,000 extinctions are reported annually — by half by 2010. At a conservative estimate, this would require expanding area under protected terrestrial and marine habitats from the present 12.5 per cent of the world’s land to 17 per cent and from 1 per cent of area under oceans to 10 per cent. It is noteworthy that the Nagoya Protocol has conceived innovative ways of generating financial resources for this purpose, which include phasing out of subsidies harmful to the natural biodiversity, estimated currently at $27 million.
Viewed from another angle, the Nagoya outcome will seem to reflect the countries’ willingness to appreciate the socio-economic value of the natural biodiversity preserved in forests, oceans, fresh waters and other ecosystems, and the role it can play in increasing their GDP. This is indicated in the countries’ expression of interest in strengthening the initiative of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to study the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity (TEEB). India and Brazil were quick to announce their plans to launch their own national TEEB studies. For India, which is home to vast genetic diversity and, regrettably, is also a victim of bio-piracy, the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic resources would be a major gain. Local communities that have been preserving and managing most of the critical genetic resources can now look forward to getting a share of the profits generated from the commercialisation of products (such as drugs) derived from these resources. The developed countries, which had been the major beneficiaries of commercial exploitation of third countries’ native resources, had been fiercely resisting this move. The momentous ABS pact can potentially help economically empower the poor in the developing countries. New Delhi will host COP-11 in 2012, on the 20th anniversary of the historic Rio Earth Summit. Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see if the Nagoya spirit is carried into the ongoing negotiations on the Kyoto accord on climate change.