ENB @ CBD COP-6, 7-19 April 2002, The Hague, The Netherlands

Sixth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
The Hague, The Netherlands
7-19 April 2002

Daily Web Coverage: Images and Real Audio

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
April 7	April 8	April 9	April 10	April 11	April 12
	April 15	April 16	April 17	April 18

ENB Summary
April	HTML	PDF	TXT
22

ENB daily reports
April	HTML	PDF	TXT
19
18
17
16
15
12
11
10
9
8

Highlights for Thursday 18 April 2002

The Ministerial roundtable reconvened in the morning to adopt the Ministerial declaration and address outstanding forest issues. A multi-stakeholder dialogue was held to address gender issues and benefit-sharing. A brief Plenary met in the evening to review progress. Working Group II (WG-II) met in morning and evening sessions to consider Conference Room Papers (CRPs) on: Article 8(j); financial resources and mechanism; contribution to the ten-year review of Agenda 21; as well as the multi-year programme of work. Contact groups on forest biodiversity and the financial mechanism also met. Above photo: The dias during the Ministerial Roundatable.

MINISTERIAL ROUNDTABLE :

Uganda emphasized the need for rationalisation of international environmental governance (IEG) and reference the IEG process in the Ministerial Declaration

Seychelles recommended a flexible two-tier approach to the year 2010 target to halt biodiversity loss.

UNEP Executive Director Klaus Töpfer characterized the broad Ministerial participation in the COP-6 high-level segment as a breakthrough for the CBD, placing it on equal footing with the UNFCCC.

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE: WOMEN AND BIODIVERSITY

Lorena Aguilar, Senior Gender Advisor, IUCN, discussed mainstreaming the issue of gender and environment on the institutional, political and field levels.

Bolivian and South Korean representatives from the Youth Conference called for legal measures to ensure equitable benefit-sharing.

FAIR AND EQUITABLE SHARING OF BENEFITS FROM GENETIC RESOURCES:

The INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT GROUP highlighted the roles of indigenous peoples and local communities in maintaining seed and crop diversity, and called for a ban on terminator seeds.

The THIRD WORLD NETWORK noted deficiencies in the Bonn guidelines, including a failure to define rights of indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers, and address conflict with TRIPS.

The keynote speaker, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum, declined to read her statement, objecting to lack of time and dialogue. She insisted her statement be included in the report to WSSD to address concerns of indigenous peoples.

WORKING GROUP II: FINANCIAL RESOURCES AND MECHANISM:

Contact group Co-Chair Linda Brown (United Kingdom) (right photo: second from left) reported on progress and, with some discussions, delegates adopted the CRP.

ARTICLE 8(j):

CANADA noted the arguments of indigenous communities and proposed withdrawing reference to consultation and including only PIC where subject to the national regime.

NORWAY supported the proposed compromise.

The INTERIOR ALLIANCE called for recognition of the international principle of PIC of indigenous peoples, without restriction by national legal regimes. The CRP was adopted.

MULTI-YEAR PROGRAMME OF WORK:

MEXICO highlighted the need for conformity between the work programme and the strategic plan.

Brazil, on behalf of GRULAC, supported by Cameroon, on behalf of the AFRICAN GROUP, and TURKEY, proposed addressing the work programme at COP-7. GRULAC did not support proposed activities for COP-8, 9 and 10, highlighting the need to address implementation of existing items first.

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA (left photo: center) raised the funding issue.

CONTACT GROUPS: FOREST BIODIVERSITY

Contact group Chair Alfred Oteng-Yeboah (Ghana) convened a contact group throughout the day. In the evening plenary, COP-6 President Faber requested WG-I Chair Schei to engage in bilateral consultations and report back to WG-I.

Links:

The CBD home page

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety home page

ENB Coverage of COP-5 |SBSTTA-7 |WG on Article 8(j)-2|WG-ABS-1 |

COP-6 Provisional Agenda |PDF|WORD|

COP-6 Information for Participants in PDF

CBD-Handbook

IISD Introduction to the CBD Process