Developing countries need environment funding: Try

Developing countries need environment funding: Try

JAKARTA (JP): Without more global funding, developing countries will not be able to live up to the Convention on Biodiversity, Vice President Try Sutrisno said here yesterday.

They need to look for other financial resources, he told a United Nations meeting of environment ministers.

"This is particularly true in view of the fact that developing countries have foreign debt problems," he said.

Try said the global community should "share equal and fair" responsibility for the environment.

However, ministers of Switzerland, Germany and other advanced countries said the existing funds for the Convention were adequate.

The Vice President opened the Ministerial Meeting of the Second Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, which ends on Nov. 17.

The first conference was held last year in the Bahamas, after the Convention was issued at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil.

The issues of nuclear testing and patenting of human material were raised by several of the 41 ministers at yesterday's conference.

Malaysia, Australia and a number of other countries said nuclear testing runs counter to the Convention.

Canada criticized the patenting of human material of people in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Around 24 senior officials had raised the issue in an earlier session. One speaker referred to the United States-sponsored "Human Genome Project" which aims to gather blood and tissue samples from the world's indigenous peoples.

Patenting human material was questioned in relation to intellectual property rights and the rapid development of genetic engineering.

Ministers of Zimbabwe, Indonesia and other developing countries said regulations to ensure the safety of the use, transfer and handling of genetic engineering (termed "biosafety protocol") are important.

Intellectual property rights was another controversial issue raised at the conference, with the ministers of Canada, India urging consultation with indigenous people.

Representatives of traditional communities talking on the sidelines of the conference have said they are basically against patents on biological sources, which they regard as communal property.

Indonesia proposed a study on the effects of patents on living organisms and the protection of traditional knowledge.

Meanwhile, smaller, "contact" groups within the conference worked to complete drafts on issues including marine and forest biodiversity as well as biosafety protocol.

Delegates have agreed that Indonesia should be the focal point for an intergovernmental panel of marine and coastal experts.

Conference chairman Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said the delegates represented 115 of the 134 countries which have ratified the Convention, and another 24 which are in the process of ratifying it.

During a break between ministerial speeches, the United Nations Environment Program launched its book entitled Global Biodiversity Assessment. (anr)