SECRETARIAT FOR BIODIVERSITY CONVENTION RELOCATES TO MONTREAL
Press Release
HE/926
SECRETARIAT FOR BIODIVERSITY CONVENTION RELOCATES TO MONTREAL
19960220 MONTREAL, 15 February (UNEP) -- Following a formal decision by States parties last November in Jakarta, the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity has relocated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Executive Secretary Calestous Juma of Kenya and a staff of 21 professionals will service the Convention and its 140 member governments from a headquarters at Montreal's World Trade Centre."Thanks to strong support from the City of Montreal, the Province of Quebec, the Government of Canada and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, we are already operational", said Mr. Juma. "This spirit of cooperation will be invaluable to us as we carry out our ambitious work programme in the months and years ahead."
"One of the Secretariat's first tasks will be to prepare for the next session of its Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, to be held 2 to 6 September in Montreal. The meeting will assess the factual information needed by governments to make policy decisions at the third annual session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP-3), which will take place in Buenos Aires 4 to 15 November. The decisions of last November's COP-2 in Jakarta are available from the Secretariat in the booklet A Call to Action.
Those two intergovernmental meetings must make progress on a number of major issues, according to the Secretariat. For the Convention to succeed, Governments must start identifying and monitoring genetic resources, species and ecosystems around the world. They must encourage sound technologies and promote technical and scientific cooperation. They must also agree on how to assess the measures taken by member countries to meet their treaty commitments.
The work programme for 1996 also includes research into the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from biotechnology. Governments agreed last year to start drafting a protocol on biosafety that would help to minimize potential risks from both accidental releases and trade. The next meeting on that topic will be held in Aarhus, Denmark, from 22 to 26 July.
Work will also begin on the "Global Biodiversity Outlook", a series of in-depth reports assessing the implications of the Convention for such key sectors as agriculture and marine and coastal areas. The first issue,
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examining forests, is scheduled for early 1997. It will be submitted to that year's session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.
Another important focus in 1996 will be indigenous and local knowledge. The Convention recognizes the special role that indigenous and local communities play in the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity. Their knowledge, innovations and practices need to be identified and protected. The Secretariat will soon fill a special staff position for strengthening work in that area.
The term biological diversity refers to the number and variety of living organisms on the planet. Recent estimates suggest that the earth is host to some 13 to 14 million species, of which only 1.75 million have been scientifically described. Tragically, those species and the ecosystems they form are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate, primarily by human activities. Flowering plants and vertebrate animals, for example, have recently become extinct at an estimated rate of 50 to 100 times the average expected natural rate.
Recognizing the immense value of the earth's biological resources, governments negotiated the Convention on Biological Diversity in time for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio. As of 1 February, 139 countries, plus the European Community (now Union), have become Parties. The Convention's objectives are "the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources". It was, thus, the first global, comprehensive agreement to address all aspects of biological diversity -- genetic resources, species and ecosystems. For more information contact: Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity, World Trade Centre, 413 St. Jacques Street, Number 630, Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 1N9, Canada; Tel: 1-514-288-2220; Fax: 1-514-228-6588. Official documents, press releases and other materials are posted on the internet at the Secretariat's Web site: http://www.unep.ch/biodiv.
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