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| Who Benefits from Biodiversity? |
| | The access and benefit-sharing (ABS) provisions of the CBD concern the regulation of access to genetic resources and aim to ensure that the benefits deriving from the use of these resources are shared in a fair and equitable manner with their providers. Subject to national law, the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous peoples and local communities linked to such resources can only be used with their prior approval and a fair sharing of any benefits.
The draft Bonn Guidelines on Access and Benefit-Sharing
(October 2001) provide operational guidelines for access
and benefit-sharing agreements and national laws. These set out provisions on prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms. They recognise that countries and organisations face responsibilities for their role in the acquisition, use and supply of genetic resources, since they are both users and providers of such resources. The Bonn Guidelines will be further developed and - it is hoped - adopted at COP6 of the CBD in April.
Sharing Through Partnerships
To date, few ABS laws or agreements require a share of benefits to be dedicated to conservation in order to ensure long-term competitiveness and secure ecosystem services and other environmental benefits. If more countries and organisations were to prioritise benefits in this way, ABS partnerships could make a far greater contribution to conservation.
Also, only a small proportion of benefits have found their way to local communities to alleviate poverty, support sustainable livelihoods and raise standards of living. New policy measures should correct this, but there is also considerable untapped potential to meet domestic needs rather than supplying fickle global markets. Community-based initiatives directed at food security and primary healthcare may offer more significant benefits than the current emphasis on exporting genetic resources for industrial research abroad, driven by others' priorities.
Current best practice has shown the most significant benefits from ABS partnerships to be capacity-building in value-added research and development and related technology transfer. Such benefits flow most naturally to a country's scientific community and can support home-grown industries in sectors such as biotechnology and information technology, contributing to economic competitiveness. Well-planned partnerships can also create opportunities for medical research on diseases that are priorities in the country concerned, but attract relatively little global investment, such as river blindness or malaria.
The Potential Value
Forest genetic resources continue to be a significant source of material for discovery, development and manufacture in the healthcare, agriculture and biotechnology sectors. Annual global markets for products derived from all genetic resources lie between US$500 and US$800 billion. Taking healthcare alone, forests have contributed important natural products such as aspirin (Salix spp), quinine (Chincona ledgeriana), pilocarpine (Pilocarpus jaborandi), physostigmine (Physostigma venenosum) and tubocuranine (Chondodendron tomentosum). In more recent years, the most striking example of a forest species yielding a blockbuster drug is Taxus baccata, from which the anti-cancer drug taxol is manufactured. Marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. under the brand name Paclitaxel, worldwide sales from 1998 to the third quarter of 2001 were US$5.3 billion (see www.bms.com and www.sec.gov).
Research in the forest sector may also lead to significant markets for new biomaterials (e.g. wood, fabric, etc.) and bioenergy products. Uses such as these suggest that the demand for access to genetic resources could join other sustainable uses of forests, such as the sourcing of non-timber forest products and ecotourism, to support sustainable livelihoods for forest dwellers and to provide the economic justification for conserving forests. Hoping to capture these benefits, some 50 countries, including the USA and the Russian Federation, but not, to my knowledge, Canada, nor any of the European boreal countries, have introduced, or are considering developing, laws and other policy measures to regulate access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing. These laws typically govern access by nationals and foreigners alike to genetic resources, biochemicals and associated traditional knowledge. They require the sharing of benefits such as royalties, technology, joint research and information, on mutually agreed terms.
Experience with access to forest genetic resources and benefit-sharing arrangements suggests that it is important for policy-makers and communities not to harbour unrealistic expectations of the potential contribution of bioprospecting to national competitiveness, poverty alleviation and conservation. The reality is that demand for genetic resources fluctuates and is not at such a scale that it is a significant source of gross national product. It is unreliable as a source of employment or of markets for forest-derived products and is likely to make only a modest contribution of funds for forest conservation.
The Way Ahead
A clear strategy on ABS is essential to help a country, its communities and organisations derive the optimum benefits from ABS partnerships and to ensure that access legislation and other policy makers achieve their goals. Stakeholders in several countries that have introduced access laws report that these have not achieved their objectives and governments are now acknowledging the need for a more strategic approach. Both the CBD COP5 decision and the draft Bonn Guidelines call for national ABS strategies.
In addition to the draft Bonn Guidelines, another recent development should stimulate ABS partnerships that increase such benefits. In November 2001, the members of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources finalised the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, with its multilateral system for access to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and associated benefit-sharing. A number of further steps would help conservation, sustainable use and equity in forest and other ecosystems: implementation of the treaty in the field of food and agriculture; simple and flexible access laws shaped by ABS strategies and the draft Bonn Guidelines; and supporting tools such as model agreements, institutional policies, case studies and capacity-building activities.
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| | Contact
Kerry ten Kate, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK |
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