Hyderabad: The sixth
meeting of the governing body of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety ended on
Saturday late night here in Hyderabad, India, with an agreement to advance
discussions to clarify socioeconomic issues associated with living modified
organism (LMOs).
Those
discussions are intended to assist Parties to the Protocol that may wish to
consider socioeconomic factors in reaching decisions on the import such
organisms. Some 1500 delegates from more than 100 countries attended the
five-day meeting.
The
delegates agreed to convene a group of experts to further clarify the issue of socioeconomic
considerations and to conduct further research and exchange information and
experiences on the issue.
Agreement
was also reached on a number of other complex issues, including risk
assessment, response actions in event of unintentional movement of LMOs across
national borders and types of documentation accompanying shipments of LMOs.
Delegates commended
the progress made in the development of “Guidance on Risk Assessment of Living
Modified Organisms” by a group of experts and encouraged Parties to test the
guidance in actual cases of risk assessment and share their experiences.
The
delegates also agreed on an improved plan of action on capacity-building to
support the implementation of the Protocol and adopted further steps to
strengthen the Biosafety Clearing-House – an online information exchange facility
under the Protocol.
Speaking at
the closing ceremony, Mr. M.F. Farooqui, Special Secretary, Ministry of
Environment and Forests of India, and Chairman of the meeting, thanked
delegates for their constructive ideas and the spirit of compromise, which
contributed to the success of the meeting.
He welcomed
the offer made by the Government of Republic of Korea to host the next meeting
of the Parties to the Protocol.
Mr. Braulio
Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological
Diversity, noted that: “Parties have found common ground on all the issues that
were on the agenda of the meeting. In particular, they made notable progress on
the issues of, socio-economic considerations and risk assessment of LMOs and
adopted an action plan on capacity-building aligned with the ten-year Strategic
Plan for the Protocol”