Earth in Brackets at CBD COP11 in Hyderabad

  Mariana Calderon is currently reporting from COP 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India. She will be working closely with the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) as well as developing her own work as part of Earth in Brackets. Follow her take on developments at the negotiations here, and keep up to date on facebook and twitter! Mariana is from...

Terms of engagement: the trench war over bio-resources

~by Nathan Thanki Although not classically what many would immediately think of as being a priority for a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which one might imagine is solely concerned with conservation of cuddly polar bear cubs and lush rainforests,  access and benefit sharing (ABS) for genetic resources and their derivatives have their own Nagoya Protocol (NP). So it is worth saying a...

Congratulations! … It’s a Protocol.

by Trudi Zundel It’s a fairly grotesque analogy: the Nagoya protocol as a newborn infant, finally emerging after years of arduous labour, ready to face the world but also helpless, in need of nurture and care. One would (or at least I did) expect the UN to be too reserved a forum for such visuals, yet Janet Lowe, ICNP Co-Chair from New Zealand, has analogised the Nagoya Protocol as such. This...

paranoia

Although security is quite tame here in Montreal, once inside the building I notice the silent, uniformed men who guard bathrooms and closets, never saying anything. At a side event at lunch, I turned around only to see one such guard standing in a darkened, empty translating room, watching. In the plenary I notice them as they patrol up and down, looking along every row of laptops. Who do they...