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10 - On biodiversity conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Scott Barrett
Affiliation:
London Business School
Charles Perrings
Affiliation:
University of York
Karl-Goran Maler
Affiliation:
Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm
Carl Folke
Affiliation:
Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm
C. S. Holling
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Bengt-Owe Jansson
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
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Summary

Introduction

In an early round of the negotiations on the Convention on Biological Diversity, a number of fundamental principles were seen to guide achievement of the objectives of the Convention. The first two of these were, “The conservation of biological diversity is a [matter of] common concern of all humankind and requires cooperation by Contracting Parties,” and “The Contracting Parties have as States the sovereign right to exploit their own biological resources pursuant to their own environmental policies. …! Though these principles were subsequently edited, they convey the essential message that biological diversity is a global public good, that all countries can potentially be made better off by cooperating, but that cooperation will only succeed if individual countries are made better off. These principles also beg the questions: How should countries exploit their own biological resources? and How can cooperation be sustained by the Convention?

Importantly, the obligations of the final Convention apply unequally between “developed” and “developing” countries. Paragraph 4 of Article 20 reads:

The extent to which developing country Parties will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention will depend on the effective implementation by developed country Parties of their commitments under the Convention related to financial resources and transfer of technology and will take fully into account the fact that economic and social development and eradication of poverty are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties.

Type
Chapter
Information
Biodiversity Loss
Economic and Ecological Issues
, pp. 283 - 298
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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