CONCLUSION
The Convention establishes an inter-connected web of obligations on countries to conserve biological diversity, to use the components of biodiversity in a sustainable way, and to share the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources:
- Articles 8 and 9 contain a comprehensive list of categories of measures to be taken in order to promote conservation of biodiversity;
- Article 10 provides that, to ensure sustainable use of biodiversity, Parties will need to integrate biodiversity into national decision-making, avoid or minimize adverse impacts on biodiversity, encourage compatible customary uses, support remedial action in degrade areas, and involve the private sector in developing methods for sustainable use;
- Articles 15 to 19 contain categories of measures that countries that provide genetic resources and countries that acquire genetic resources both need to take to ensure that the benefits that arise are shared fairly and equitably.
Parties will find it difficult to move forward on a secure basis in identifying and implementing the appropriate measures, without having completed the first cycle of the identification and monitoring measures specified in Article 7 through:
- Identifying components of biological diversity important for its conservation and sustainable use;
- Monitoring these, particularly those requiring urgent conservation measures and those offering the greatest potential for sustainable use;
- Identifying activities likely to have significant adverse effects on biological diversity;
- Maintaining data on all the above.
Article 6 is fundamental in this regard. It requires Parties to develop national biodiversity strategies and action plans (or adapt existing strategies) and mainstream biodiversity into all sectors. Procedures recommended by the Conference of the Parties for developing national biodiversity strategies start with the need to identify the biodiversity within the country and assess its status, if this hasn't been done. With this assessment, and having identified an institutional framework and operational responsibilities, the strategy can then be developed to address the three objectives of the Convention in the light of national circumstances.
It is the central importance of having a national strategy and action plan as the cornerstone of national action to implement the Convention that led to the decision by the Conference of the Parties that, in the first round of national reporting, countries should focus on their implementation of Article 6.
However, as we have seen, in many cases the development of the national biodiversity strategy has been slower and more complex than anticipated. Few developing countries were in a position to report on a completed process by the time the first reports were due. A number of developed countries were similarly unable to report on the completed process.
This means that, following the first round of reporting in 1997-98, there is no comprehensive basis on which to answer the question `What do we know about progress, constraints, and emerging issues?' in implementing each of the objectives of the Convention - conservation, sustainable use, and benefit sharing.
For this reason the Conference of the Parties has adopted a new reporting format for future rounds of national reporting, designed to bring out information about all the measures Parties have been requested to take, deriving from the provisions of the Convention and from decisions of the Conference of the Parties. It is hoped that this will provide the comprehensive overview of progress, constraints and emerging issues on each aspect of implementation needed to allow a global analysis of the state of national implementation of the Convention. This analysis will form the central focus of the next edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook.
