Biodiversity meeting under way in Pyeongchang

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Biodiversity meeting under way in Pyeongchang



The 12th Conference of Parties (COP 12) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) kicked off yesterday in Pyeongchang, Gangwon, with delegates attending from more than 190 countries to discuss biodiversity and develop strategies to conserve it.

The biennial conference will run through Oct. 17 at the Alpensia Convention Center in Pyeongchang, where the 2018 Olympic Winter Games will be hosted.

Twenty-thousand participants, including representatives from the CBD’s 193 member states, international organizations and civil society, are expected to attend the conference and its side events.

Yoon Seong-kyu, environment minister and chairperson of the CBD, said in a press conference prior to the convention that he plans to propose that the convention’s member countries agree to the Bio-Bridge Initiative, which aims to boost technical and scientific cooperation between advanced and developing nations.

CBD Executive Secretary Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias vowed to examine the progress made on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, and also to come up with a plan to sign the Pyeongchang Road Map on meeting biodiversity targets before the conference is over.

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity was agreed upon in the 10th meeting of the CBD held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. It details goals that the member states wish to achieve between 2011 and 2020.

On Sunday, the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization will go into effect. The protocol is a legal framework that governs access to genetic materials and provides rules for groups that use and provide them, such as companies and research institutes. It has been signed by 50 of the CBD’s member states, excluding Korea and the European Union.


BY LEE SUNG-EUN, KANG CHAN-SU [selee@joongang.co.kr]



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