The biodiversity convention: more losers than winners

Abstract

The most important of the provisions of the UNCED Convention on Biological Diversity, and one which has received the greatest attention, relates to the control of and access to plant genetic resources. The Convention lays down that the plant genetic resources are the national heritage of the country in whose territory they are found and has placed them under the sovereign control of individual states. Thus, access of other states to plant genetic resources will have to be negotiated on mutually agreed terms. The Convention also calls for the results of research and development, and the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of plant genetic resources, to be shared in a fair and equitable way with the country which provided these resources in the first place.