The event is organized with the support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO under the Global BioTrade Programme: Linking trade, environment and sustainable development and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Background
For two decades, BioTrade and its partners and beneficiaries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe have contributed to enhancing environmental, social and economic sustainability through the trade of biodiversity-based goods and services. This has generated initiatives that use their surrounding biodiversity, going beyond traditional agricultural crops and livestock, to develop and trade value added products. Moreover, BioTrade is increasing the economic self-reliance and resilience of communities and SMEs, mainstreaming biodiversity and ABS, while safeguarding biodiversity. Consequently, BioTrade contributes directly and indirectly to 94% of the SDGs.
Though only 4% of world trade (US$290 billion) is related to biodiversity-based goods and services (Gomez-García et al, 2014), the market has shown astonishing growth in past decades and is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. For instance, the growth of the natural product sales increased from US$1.9 billion in 1980, to US$141 billion in 2016 (New Hope Network, 13 July 2017), provided stimulus for companies to shift towards socially and environmentally friendly production processes. More significantly, sales from BioTrade beneficiary companies and associations have reached Euro 4.44 billion (US$5.38 billion) in 2016 in over 3500 value chains in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, illustrating a significant increase from US$ 30 million in 2003.
Today, more than 105 countries have ratified the Nagoya Protocol. Well-designed Nagoya-compliant BioTrade value chains, framed by enabling Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) regimes are fostering a range of Agenda 2030 Goals with the target 6 of SDG 15 at its core. Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) is directly related to poverty alleviation, (1.4), food security (2.5), health (3.b), economic growth (8.3), infrastructural development (9.5, 9.5b), climate change adaptation (13.1), marine conservation (14.7, 14.7a), terrestrial conservation (15.a), peace and justice (16.3, 16.6), and global partnerships (17.3, 17.7, 17.9, 17.17, 17.15).
In response to the worldwide consumer and market trends of “more natural” and “more traceable” products and services such as those in the food, body care and pharmaceutical sectors, R&D and innovation-oriented projects with strong monitoring components are on the rise. Increasingly, BioTrade companies tend to engage in R&D at the higher level of the value chain and therefore potentially trigger ABS regulations. Recent experiences in countries such as South Africa, Peru, and Viet Nam show that there is flexibility and various models and options to create incentives for compliance and sharing of benefits for all parties involved.
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