Seventh meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended
Working Group on Access and Benefit-Sharing of
the Convention on Biological Diversity

Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive Secretary and Timothy Hodges (Canada), ABS Working Group Co-Chair

Daily web coverage
2 April - 3 April - 4 April - 5 April - 6 April - 7 April - 8 April

	Highlights for Wednesday, 8 April 2009 The seventh meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) met from 2-8 April 2009, at UNESCO headquarters, in Paris, France. The meeting continued the negotiation of an international regime on ABS, focusing on operational text on the objective, scope, compliance, fair and equitable benefit-sharing, and access. The Working Group is expected to finalize the international regime and to submit it for consideration and adoption by the tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the CBD, to be held from 18-29 October 2010, in Nagoya, Japan. The Working Group encountered several procedural obstacles, most of which related to the structure of the negotiating document agreed upon at ABS 6 and CBD COP 9, consisting of sections on the main components, including items “to be further elaborated with the aim of incorporating them in the international regime” in the case of agreement in principle (“bricks”), and items “for further consideration,” in the case of disagreement or need for further clarification (“bullets”). Although this structure had assisted negotiations in the past, it provoked prolonged procedural debates in Paris, with regional groups accusing each other of sabotaging the process by trying to promote bullets to bricks through their textual proposals under each item. Two days before the end of the meeting the Working Group agreed to abandon the bricks and bullets concept and work directly on textual proposals under the existing structure. The most controversial substantive debate concerned the inclusion or not of viruses and pathogens in the scope of the regime, and was held in the early morning hours of Wednesday, 8 April, in the contact group on scope.

Fernando Casas (Colombia), ABS Working Group Co-Chair, James Seyani, Malawi, Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive Secretary and Timothy Hodges (Canada), ABS Working Group Co-Chair

Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive Secretary and Timothy Hodges (Canada), ABS Working Group Co-Chair

Matthias Buck, EU

Fernando Coimbra, Brazil

Pierre du Plessis, Namibia

Ossama El-Tayeb, Egypt

Gurdial Singh, Malaysia

Timothy Hodges (Canada), ABS Working Group Co-Chair

Gapusi R. Jean, Rwanda

Victor Canton, Uruguay

Malaysian Delegates

Delegates from the Philippines

Japanese delegates

France Jacovella, Canada

Joseph Toussaint, Haiti

	Memorandum of Understanding on Capacity-Building for Indigenous and local communities

Indigenous representatives sign memorandum of understanding.

CBD Executive Secretary signs memorandum of understanding.

	Around the Conference Center

Teresa Dolores Cruz Sardinas, Cuba and Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive Secretary

Imane Keira, Lisa Pedicelli, Veronique Allain, and Franca D'Amico, Secretariat Staff

Antonio Matamorros, Ecuador and Carliz Diaz, Venezuela

Harry Jonas, ENB writer, (UK), Stefan Jungcurt, ENB writer (Germany), Nicole Schabus, Enb writer, (Austria), Elsa Tsioumani, ENB Team Leader (Greece), Claudio Chiarolla, ENB writer (Italy),

Nancy Williams, ENB Logistic Coordinator, (United States), and Angeles Estrada Vigil, ENB Digital Editor (Argentina)

Franca D'Amico and John Scott, CBD Secretariat

	Daily web coverage 2 April - 3 April - 4 April - 5 April - 6 April - 7 April - 8 April

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	Related Links CBD Secretariat Meeting documents Provisional Agenda Annotated Provisional Agenda IISD RS resources IISD RS coverage of the Sixth meeting of the Ad-hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS 6),  21-25 January 2008, Geneva, Switzerland IISD RS coverage of the Fifth meeting of the Ad-hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS 5),  8-12 October 2007, Montreal, Canada IISD RS coverage of the CBD COP 9, 19-30 May 2008, Bonn, Germany IISD RS coverage of the CBD COP 8, 20-31 March 2006, Curitiba, Brazil IISD RS biodiversity and wildlife page BIODIVERSITY-L - A mailing list for news on biodiversity and wildlife policy Linkages Update - Bi-weekly international environment and sustainable development news MEA Bulletin - Newsletter on key MEAs and their secretariats African Regional Coverage Linkages Africa - Fortnightly newsletter reporting on sustainable development events in Africa