Options for cooperation
There exist many avenues for further enhancing cooperation among
the biodiversity-related Conventions. The challenge will be to do so in a
manner that adds value to existing efforts, making use of the relative strengths
of each convention without duplicating work.
Ideas include, but are not limited to:
- Enhancing contributions
to achieving and monitoring progress towards the 2010
target.
- Participating
in the development of a Global
Partnership for Biodiversity.
- Harmonizing
national reporting processes to increase information quality and
reduce the reporting burden on Parties.
- Strengthening
national implementation, through, for example, increased coordination
among national focal points of the various conventions.
- Developing
common approaches to addressing the major threats to biodiversity, as
identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (i.e., climate change,
land use change, invasive species, overexploitation and pollution).
- Working to
integrate biodiversity concerns into the implementation of the Millennium
Development Goals and the development
process more generally, emphasizing the links between environmental sustainability
and development.
- Coordinating
requests to scientific assessments, and sharing scientific expertise
and tasks among the conventions.
- Sharing criteria,
guidelines and definitions to promote coherence.
These and other options for cooperation are drawn from:
- the meetings
of the Biodiversity Liaison Group
- the joint paper
of the secretariats of the biodiversity-related conventions on ‘Options for
enhanced cooperation among the biodiversity-related conventions’ (UNEP/CBD/WGRI/1/7/Add.2).
- the final report
of the ‘Expert workshop promoting CITES-CBD
Cooperation and Synergy’ (Vilm, Germany, 20-24 April 2004). The full workshop
proceedings are also available.
- the documents
of the Regional Workshop for
Africa on Synergy among the Rio Conventions and Other Biodiversity-Related Conventions
in Implementing the Programmes of Work on Dry and Sub-humid Lands and
Agrobiodiversity (Gaborone, 13-17 September 2004).
- The
paper ‘Synergies
and Cooperation: Status report on activities promoting synergies and cooperation
between Multilateral Environmental Agreements, in particular biodiversity-related
conventions, and related mechanisms’, prepared by UNEP-WCMC.
These and additional documents relating to cooperation among the conventions
are available here .
