The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity ; the sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources. Its objective is to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and it is often seen as the key document regarding sustainable development.
Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. Environmental law is the collection of laws, regulations, agreements and common law that governs how humans interact with their environment. This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments. Environmental law is seen as the body of laws concerned with the protection of living things from the harm that human activity may immediately or eventually cause to them or their species, either directly or to the media and the habits on which they depend.
Bioprospecting is the exploration of natural sources for small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that could be developed into commercially valuable products for the agricultural, aquaculture, bioremediation, cosmetics, nanotechnology, or pharmaceutical industries. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, almost one third of all small-molecule drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1981 and 2014 were either natural products or compounds derived from natural products.
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources is limited.
Rio Convention relates to the following three conventions, which were agreed at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.
Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest lands, most commonly with respect to forest management and timber harvesting. Forestry laws generally adopt management policies for public forest resources, such as multiple use and sustained yield. Forest management is split between private and public management, with public forests being sovereign property of the State. Forestry laws are now considered an international affair.
Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK), folk knowledge, and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities.
Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management must keep a balance between the three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural. The goal of sustainable forestry is to allow for a balance to be found between making use of trees while maintaining natural patterns of disturbance and regeneration. The forestry industry mitigates climate change by boosting carbon storage in growing trees and soils and improving the sustainable supply of renewable raw materials via sustainable forest management.
According to an important University's master program, Environmental governance (EG) consist of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regulatory body which is responsible for ensuring sustainability (sustainable development) and manage all human activities—political, social and economic. Environmental governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management. Obviously, in fact the EG arrangements are very diversed and not at all as inclusive as we could wish them to be.
Indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs), or Indigenous peoples’ and community conserved territories and areas, are spaces de facto governed by Indigenous peoples or local communities with evidently positive outcomes for the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. In ICCAs, the continuation, revival, or modification of traditional practices and/or new initiatives succeed in protecting and restoring natural resources and cultural values in the face of new threats or opportunities. Some ICCAs are situated in remote ecosystems that have had minimum human influence, while others encompass areas of various regulations and magnitudes within regions strongly affected or modified by human occupation. ICCAs may or may not fit the IUCN definition of “protected area” but, when they do, they can fall into any IUCN protected area categories.
The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity, also known as the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) is a 2010 supplementary agreement to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Its aim is the implementation of one of the three objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, thereby contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. It sets out obligations for its contracting parties to take measures in relation to access to genetic resources, benefit-sharing and compliance.
Tan Sri Zakri bin Abdul Hamid has had a distinguished career in science as a researcher, educator, administrator and diplomat.
Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is aimed to establish bottom-up participation and consultation of an indigenous population prior to the beginning of development on ancestral land or using resources in an indigenous population's territory. Indigenous people have a special connection to their land and resources and inhabit one fifth of the earth's surface. Such areas are environmentally rich in both renewable and non-renewable resources. The collective ownership style of most Indigenous Peoples conflicts with the modern global market and its continuous need for resources and land. To protect Indigenous Peoples' rights, international human rights law has created processes and standards to safeguard their way of life and to encourage participation in the decision-making process. One such method is the process of FPIC. There is criticism that many international conventions and treaties require consultation, not consent, which is a much higher threshold. Without the requirement for consent, indigenous people cannot veto government projects and developments in their area that directly affect their lives and cultures. FPIC allows Indigenous Peoples to have the right to self-determination and self-governance in national and local government decision-making processes over projects that concern their lives and resources.
An Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement (ABSA) is an agreement that defines the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. ABSAs typically arise in relation to bioprospecting where indigenous knowledge is used to focus screening efforts for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources. ABSAs recognise that bioprospecting frequently relies on indigenous or traditional knowledge, and that people or communities who hold such knowledge are entitled to a share of benefits arising from its commercial utilization.
Plant genetic resources describe the variability within plants that comes from human and natural selection over millennia. Their intrinsic value mainly concerns agricultural crops.
Genetic resources means genetic material of actual or potential value where genetic material means any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity... Genetic resources thus refer to the part of genetic diversity that has or could have practical use, such as in plant breeding. The term was introduced by Otto Frankel and Erna Bennett for a technical conference on the exploration, utilization and conservation of plant genetic resources, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Biological Program (IBP), held in Rome, Italy, 18–26 September 1967.
Digital sequence information (DSI) is a placeholder term used in international policy fora, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to refer to data derived from de-materialized genetic resources. The 2018 Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on DSI reached consensus that the term was "not appropriate". Nevertheless, the term is generally agreed to include nucleic acid sequence data, and may be construed to include other data types derived from or linked to dematerialized genetic resources, including, for example, protein sequence data. The appropriateness and meaning of this term remain controversial as evidenced by its continued placeholder status, post the 15th Conference of the Parties to the CBD. DSI is crucial to research in a wide range of contexts, including public health, medicine, biodiversity, plant and animal breeding, and evolution research.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is an outcome of the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference. Its tentative title had been the "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework". The GBF was adopted by the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on 19 December 2022. It has been promoted as a "Paris Agreement for Nature". It is one of a handful of agreements under the auspices of the CBD, and it is the most significant to date. It has been hailed as a "huge, historic moment" and a "major win for our planet and for all of humanity."
Harry Driver Jonas is a British international lawyer and social entrepreneur, best known for his contributions to legal empowerment and area-based conservation. He advanced the theory and practice of community protocols to affirm Indigenous peoples’ rights over their territories and traditional knowledge, and was instrumental in developing the international framework for other effective area-based conservation measures to better recognize biodiversity stewardship beyond protected areas.
