THE Biodiversity Convention, one of the main outcomes of the Earth Summit, is floundering after a first meeting of the convention signatories which finished in the Bahamas last week.
Thirty months after the convention was signed by most of the world鈥檚 governments, fewer than a dozen countries have submitted national plans for protecting their biodiversity, one of the central commitments of the convention. And the meeting, whose central purpose was to agree on how to protect the world鈥檚 species, showed what Gordon Shepherd of the World Wide Fund for Nature calls 鈥渁 paranoiac unwillingness鈥� to discuss forests, where an estimated half of all the world鈥檚 species live.
The 12-day meeting in Nassau also failed to decide where the convention鈥檚 secretariat should be based. And it put off a decision on new rules for the safe handling and transport of genetically altered organisms until the end of next year.
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The meeting did agree to set up a subcommittee to provide 鈥渟cientific and technical advice鈥� on conservation. But this will not hold its first meeting until next September. And a decision on setting up a 鈥渃learing house鈥� for scientific cooperation between countries 鈥� arranging for British biologists to advise on saving tropical rainforests, for instance 鈥� was postponed for a year, pending further studies.
In a rare act of decisiveness, the meeting of representatives from the 133 countries that have so far signed the convention did agree that 29 December each year should be declared the International Day for Biological Diversity.
Delegates from conservation groups left the conference angry that forests were largely ignored. In what appeared to be an admission of defeat in a classic UN 鈥渢urf war鈥�, the topic has been left to a meeting next year of the UN鈥檚 Commission on Sustainable Development. The CSD is another creation of the Earth Summit, but its decisions lack the force of a legally binding convention.
Shepherd says this is 鈥渁n extremely worrying development鈥�. The CSD is trying to reach agreement on a new UN Forest Convention. But its work is being coordinated by Canada and Malaysia, two leading timber producing nations heavily criticised by conservationists for their destruction of natural forest biodiversity. 鈥淏iodiversity concerns will take second place to timber production,鈥� says Shepherd. According to James Martin-Jones, another WWF delegate: 鈥淢any Third World governments, especially Malaysia and Brazil, refuse to talk about conservation of their own forests unless they are offered large amounts of money in compensation.鈥�
Mark Collins, director of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, based in Cambridge, agrees that 鈥渁 lot of things were put off or watered down in Nassau鈥�.
The political paralysis of the convention is symbolised by its failure to find a home. Based temporarily with the UN Environment Programme in Geneva, the meeting considered competing offers to host the secretariat from Madrid and Nairobi. These same three cities have been the only candidates ever since the Earth Summit.
Since the Rio summit, the world has lost an estimated 40 000 to 80 000 species.