The loss of biodiversity can be prevented by linking conservation to sustainable use and benefit-sharing, UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi will say at a UN meeting in Brazil next week. "In the context of our increasingly globalized economy, we will need to make sure that the process of globalization … works for the benefit of biodiversity and not its loss", he will tell a ministerial roundtable on trade and biodiversity on 28 March.
Dr. Supachai will also participate in other high-level events during the eighth Conference of the Parties (COP 8) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to be held from 20 to 31 March in Curitiba. At the conference UNCTAD, as the UN agency responsible for addressing the interface between the international trade regime and the sustainable development agenda, will support the development of a global partnership for biodiversity, in which UNCTAD´s role would be to make trade work for biodiversity.
UNCTAD´s BioTrade Initiative includes several projects aimed at expanding trade in value-added products based on the sustainable use of wide-ranging native species, and at bringing profits to developing countries and thus encouraging them to protect those natural resources.
During the first week of COP 8, UNCTAD will stage side events on its BioTrade Programme and on incentives for businesses specializing in biodiversity; hold a roundtable on biodiversity and small- and medium-sized enterprises from developing countries; and, as part of a Global Biodiversity Forum, co-sponsor a workshop on "verifying biodiversity trade".
During the ministerial-level second week of the conference, Secretary-General Supachai will emphasize UNCTAD´s commitment to supporting the discussions of the Parties on the development of a Global Partnership on Biodiversity - which, he has suggested, could explore ways to implement the biodiversity-related multilateral environmental agreements more effectively. It could also strengthen the substantive linkages between these agreements and other treaties on sustainable development, particularly as they concern the international trading regime under the WTO.
Dr. Supachai´s message to the CBD Parties will highlight the positive results achieved by the UNCTAD BioTrade Initiative since it was launched in 1998. The Initiative has focused on priority areas of the biodiversity convention, including using trade as an incentive for the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity and the involvement of the private sector in encouraging sustainable resource management.
The UNCTAD Secretary-General will also reaffirm UNCTAD´s commitment to cooperating with current partners in linking trade and for biodiversity. These partners include the Andean Community, the Andean Development Corporation and the secretariats of other multilateral environmental agreements, such as the CBD, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, among others.
