Cropper, Angela

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364 Environmental Conservationand, with his high sense of duty and ethics, knowingprecisely what he felt had to be done. He will be missed bymany people from different nations and of all ages, and willleave us with glorious memories. He was in many wayscomparable with the great encyclopaedists of the Renais-sance, and was a true citizen of the world.MICHEL BATISSESenior Environmental Adviser, UNESCO7 Place de Fontenoy75352 Paris 07-SPFrance.Convention on Biological DiversityBarely 18 months after its signing at the June 1992'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro, the Convention onBiological Diversity became international law on 29December 1993. The Executive Director of the UnitedNations Environment Programme has hailed the occasionas 'one of the most significant recent developments ininternational law and in international relations relating toenvironment and development.'In the face of the greatest extinction of species for 60million years, mostly of late as a result of human activities,the treaty commits nations to protect biological diversity —ecosystems and genetic resources as well as species. Thetreaty pledges them to use sustainably the world's plants,animals, and all other organisms, and seeks to ensure thefair and equitable sharing of the benefits that result fromthe use of genetic resources, particularly for developingcountries.The benefits reaped from biodiversity can be foundalmost everywhere. Thus a plant found only in the Mada-gascar rain-forests has proved of enormous value in com-bating childhood leukaemia, while the bark of a treegrowing in the northwestern United States is being used tocombat certain forms of cancer, and more than a quarter ofall prescriptions in modern Western medicine containactive ingredients that have been extracted from wildplants. Varieties of wheat grown in Canada contains genesthat have been introduced from as many as 14 othercountries, while a 'useless' wild wheat plant from Turkeyis used to give commercial wheat crops resistance todisease and a wild species of coffee from Madagascar doesthe same for that crop.Our planet's food supply also depends on diversity —the genetic uniformity of some crops has allowed pests tosweep across countries, causing crippling damage and, attimes, enormous loss of life. Habitat destruction is a majorthreat to biodiversity, which is also lost through over-harvesting, chemical pollution, and the inappropriate intro-duction of foreign plants and animals. Climate changethreatens to accelerate the current destruction.* In chronological order of their ratification, the followingcountries were the first 36 to ratify the biological diversity treaty bymid-December of 1993: Mauritius, Seychelles, Marshall Islands,Maldives, Monaco, Canada, China, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Ecuador,Fiji, Antigua and Barbuda, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu,Cook Islands, Guinea, Armenia, Japan, Zambia, Peru, Australia,Norway, Tunisia, Saint Lucia, Bahamas, Burkina Faso, Belarus,Uganda, New Zealand, Mongolia, Philippines, Uruguay, Nauru,Nepal, Czech Republic, and Barbados.The ratification that made the Convention internationallaw came from Mongolia on 30 September. Ninety dayslater — actually on 29 December 1993 — the treaty be-came a binding legal document for the countries that haveratified it, 36 to date.*By mid-December of 1993, 167 States had signed theConvention, including the ratifiers. Many Governmentsthat have signed are in the process of securing ratification,including the United States and countries of the EuropeanUnion. It is to be hoped that States which have signed madeNew Year resolutions to ratify the biodiversity agreementearly in 1994, while another resolution would be to startimplementing it. The Convention's commitments need tobe integrated into national laws and policies and intocountries' plans for managing their resources of plants,animals, and natural habitats.The first meeting of Governments that have ratified theConvention (the first Conference of Parties) is tentativelyscheduled for 28 November to 9 December 1994, to takesome of the fundamental decisions for advancing theConvention's provisions. Under the treaty, countries pro-mise to develop national plans for the conservation andsustainable use of biodiversity, through making inventoriesof resources and integrating such plans into developmentstrategies. They are also required to enact laws to protectthreatened species and habitats and expand natural pro-tected areas.Developed countries are to assist poorer nations incarrying out their conservation programmes through theuse of appropriate technologies and the provision of newfinancial assistance. The treaty also says that developedcountries shall 'provide new and additional financialresources' to developing countries, so that the latter cancarry out their treaty obligations.Agreements for access to genetic resources and thetransfer of biotechnologies are to be promoted. Countriesare encouraged to preserve the traditional knowledge ofindigenous' communities in the conservation and use ofbiological diversity. According to the Convention, thisshould be done with the active involvement of indigenouspeoples who possess such knowledge, so that all canbenefit from its use.ANGELA CROPPER, Executive SecretaryConvention on Biological Diversitydo United Nations Environment Programme15 Chemin des Anemones, CP 3561219 Chatelaine, Geneva, Switzerland.Small-island States and Low-lying Coastal Areas Especially Vulnerable to Climate, Global Warming,and Sea-level ChangesIn his opening address to the World Coast Conferenceheld recently in The Hague, Netherlands, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization(WMO), Professor G.O.P. Obasi, emphasized how 'smallisland states and coastal areas are very vulnerable andsensitive to climate and atmospheric changes which resultin global warming and sea-level change'. He also said thatthese areas are prone to suffer from the devastating effectsof storms, whose frequencies and intensities might bealtered as a result of climate change. The Government ofhttps:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900023614Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 13:16:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

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