CBD

For those con­cerned about the unreg­u­lat­ed and poten­tial­ly uncon­trol­lable spread of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms, there was a lot at stake at the 16th Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties to the UN Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­ven­tion.

The 16th Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties (COP) of the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty (CBD) in Cali pro­duced few encour­ag­ing results with regard to the Pre­cau­tion­ary Prinici­ple and the effec­tive reg­u­la­tion of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered organ­isms, par­tic­u­lar­ly gene dri­ves.

Things have changed at the Con­ven­tion for Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty, CBD, says Jim Thomas who par­tic­i­pat­ed in most of the Con­ven­tion’s COPs (CBD Con­fer­ence of Par­ties) and MOPs (Meet­ing of Par­ties to the CBDs Biosafe­ty Pro­to­col) in this cen­tu­ry.

As biotech­nol­o­gy reach­es ever greater capa­bil­i­ties to “re-design” nature, some want to turn the CBD into a place for the pro­mo­tion rather than reg­u­la­tion of biotech­nol­o­gy. Par­ties to the Con­ven­tion can­not let this hap­pen, warns Ger­man-based NGO Save Our Seeds.

At the 26th Meet­ing of the Sub­sidiary Body on Sci­en­tif­ic, Tech­ni­cal and Tech­no­log­i­cal Advice (SBSTTA) to the Con­ven­tion of Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty (CBD), Gene Dri­ves received sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion.