NAGOYA — Delegates to the COP10 biodiversity conference concluded agreements early Saturday on access to genetic resources, preserving biodiversity over the next decade, and strategies to mobilize financial resources to meet these goals.
The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits (ABS) was COP10's keystone agreement, to which all other issues were linked.
Under the new protocol, 193 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which sponsored COP10, will be legally obliged to follow rules designed to prevent biopiracy and provide benefits, including financial ones, to other parties when their genetic resources are accessed.