Nagoya biodiversity talks stall on cash and targets
Baku, October 23(AZERTAC). Conservation groups have expressed concern that a major UN conference on nature protection is stalling, with some governments accused of holding the process hostage to their own interest, BBC reports.
Their warning comes halfway through the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya, Japan.
During negotiations some countries have proposed weaker rather than stronger targets for protection, they say.
Some developing countries say the West is not meeting their concerns.
"The most optimistic assessment is that we have not gone far towards a deal," said Muhtari Aminu-Kano, senior policy advisor with BirdLife International.
"The main reason is that there are several delegations that are not showing the political will needed to break the deadlock here," he told BBC News.
"It`s your usual story - it`s people putting their national interests far above the importance of biodiversity."
Having failed to meet the target set in 2002 of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, the draft agreement before this meeting contains a set of 20 targets.
But there is fundamental division between those demanding tough pledges, such as ending biodiversity loss by 2020, and those who argue this is not possible.
Another draft clause calls for a 100-fold increase in international financing on biodiversity, which would be raised principally in industrialised nations and primarily spent in the developing world.
`Shocking and pitiful`
While the main priority for Western nations is to secure tough targets for protecting plants and animals and the habitat they need, developing countries are in general more concerned about international finance, and about an agreement on fair and equitable access to the Earth`s natural genetic resources.
Such an agreement - known as access and benefit sharing (ABS) - was prescribed when the CBD came into existence 18 years ago, but successive attempts to negotiate it have failed.
Developing nations - where most of the planet`s unexplored genetic resources lie - want an equitable share in the profits generated when Western companies develop drugs or other products from plants or anything else that came from their territory.
Some - notably within the African bloc - are insisting that such an agreement should be retrospective, which would imply Western companies would have to pay compensation for products already on the market.
"Some countries are holding everything hostage to resolving ABS," said Sue Lieberman, director of international policy with the Pew Environment Group.
"I`m not saying that`s not important, but if you look at the status of the marine environment, it`s shocking and pitiful to think there might be no progress here at all.
"We`re particularly disappointed in Brazil."
Some governments, she said, were arguing that the CBD should not discuss conservation on the high seas, while others were proposing that only 1% of the world`s coastal waters should be protected.
The existing global target for marine protection is 10%.
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