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Earth Negotiations Bulletin Summary of BIOS-2
Available in PDF or ASCII

Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group on Biosafety

Updated 21 May 1997

WGBS-2 - 12-16 May 1997, Montreal

The second meeting of the Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group on Biosafety is being held in Montreal from 12-16 May 1997. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin will publish a summary report of this meeting on 19 May. During the meeting the ENB team will provide daily updates to this page with photos and short summaries of the events.

The official documents are now available from the Secretariat.

Good news on the Clearing House Mechanism!!

After two years of the "pilot-less" phase, Calestous Juma announced on 12 May that Mr. Marc Auer has joined the Secretariat to take responsibility for the Clearing House Mechanism.Marc Auer


We have recorded several of the opening-day interventions and will make them available on-line over the next several days.

Viet Koester, Working Group Chair, introduces the mandate of the Working Group and notes the decisions of the Parties in relation to the Working Group, as well as the decision of the Commission on S ustainable Development. He outlines the tasks of the Working Group and states the objectives of the meeting: a) to make progress on number of core issues; b) develop a product for consideration at the next meeting; c) develop mechanisms for discussion of other items d) provide clear guidance to the Parties.

Mr. Zedan of UNEP, speaking on behalf of the UNEP Secretariat, provided a brief history of the issue of Biosafety. UNEP's hope is that the group should Identify and formulate positions on core is sues and complete work in 1998 on development of biosafety protocol.

Calestous Juma, Executive Director of the CBD Secretariat, summarized the activities of the Secretariat since the last meeting of the Conference of the Parties and preparations for the upcoming SBST TA meeting.

WGBS-1 - 22-26 July 1996, Aarhus, Denmark

 

The first meeting of the Open-ended Ad Hoc Working Group on Biosafety was held in Aarhus, Denmark from 22-26 July 1996.

Daily news from the meeting

Official documentation

RealAudio sound files from the meeting (soon)

Photos from the Aarhus meeting

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin summary of this meeting

CBD Secretariat WWW site