High-level Meeting on Biodiversity: Efforts to Reach Agreements at COP10 in Nagoya

September 22, 2010

On September 22, a high-level meeting on biodiversity was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York. From Japan, Mr. Seiji Maehara, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Ryu Matsumoto, Minister of the Environment, attended the meeting. This high-level meeting was convened as a contribution to the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity (IYB), and its outcomes will be reported at COP10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya in October (which Japan will chair).

In his address, Minister Maehara proposed to make the ten years starting in 2011 the Decade of Biodiversity, calling for the adoption at the General Assembly session of a resolution on the establishment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a new organization to be charged with scientific analysis on biodiversity. He also made a reference to the SATOYAMA Initiative: international efforts in promoting conservation and the sustainable use of the natural environment in the regions which have been created through such human activities as agriculture, forestry and fisheries. In addition, the Minister stated that Japan was ready to support developing countries if a global common target was agreed upon at COP10. Minister Matsumoto expressed his resolve as the Chair of COP10, which will be held under the theme of Living in Harmony with Nature, to come to agreements on major issues.

Efforts to reach international agreements at COP10 have gained momentum at this meeting, an epoch-making event in which biodiversity was discussed for the first time at a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly. COP10, together with the fifth Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol (MOP5), will be convened in Nagoya in October 2010. Expected outcomes of COP10 include: revisions to the 2010 Biodiversity Target set in 2002 for the period after 2010 (i.e., establishment of post-2010 targets); establishment of an international regime on access and benefit-sharing (ABS); and adoption of a rule under the Cartagena Protocol for liability and redress. As the host country of COP10, Japan will actively contribute to the discussions to realize these outcomes.