31st July 2010
History made with draft Biodiversity Protocol in Montreal, July 2010

In Montreal, Governments that are parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), finally started to negotiate the text of a draft protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), in Montreal in early to mid July, after more than five years of protracted discussion and debate.
The new treaty is aimed at stopping bio-piracy and to ensure that developing countries that constitute the bulk of providers of biological resources get their fair and equitable share of benefits from the use of their biodiversity and the associated traditional knowledge of their indigenous people and local communities.
With the entry into force of the CBD since 1993, there are legal obligations for users of genetic resources or associated traditional knowledge to fairly and equitably share the benefits of such use, with the countries of origin or countries that provide the resources, as well as the relevant indigenous and local communities. However developed countries, their research institutions and industry have not fulfilled this objective. Hence the push for this legally binding agreement or protocol to make the third objective of the convention (fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources) become a reality.
About six hundred persons comprising parties to the CBD, representatives of research institutions, the media, civil society, industry, indigenous and local communities were present in Montreal. Following seven days of intense and complex negotiations, with major financial support of Japan, major breakthroughs on the text of the protocol were made by Governments.