Thursday, 14 January 2010 - 9.00am - 10.30am
Speaker: Ruth Mackenzie
Abstract
Numerous multilateral environmental and other agreements address or affect biodiversity management. In general terms, each of these instruments has an autonomous existence. While efforts have been made to explore harmonised approaches and to enhance linkages between the conventions, there remain some gaps, overlaps and ambiguities. The international agreements target different aspects of biodiversity management, utilise different regulatory techniques, and establish their own institutional arrangements for law and policy making, and their own mechanisms for integrating science into the policy process. The governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Decision IX/15 in response to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, has noted the need for improved scientific information and for strengthening the role of scientific advisory bodies under biodiversity-related conventions. This presentation explores prospects for such improvements both within and between the existing agreements, and through the development of new science policy bodies.