Kew at the Conference of the Parties 2010

Kew participated in the Convention on Biological Diversity – 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties 2010. Government representatives from 193 countries met in Nagoya, Japan – to discuss the conservation and management of the world’s biodiversity.

At the meeting – the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 10th Conference of the Parties (CBD COP10), countries that have signed up to the Convention (parties) will make strategic decisions and evaluate progress towards the work of the Convention.

Kew's role

Staff from Kew attended the conference in order to provide unbiased, scientific advice to governments about matters related to plants, and access to and use of plant genetic resources. At COP10, an International Regime on Access and Benefit-sharing was discussed, alongside the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.

In 2010, this meeting took place during an important year, designated the International Year for Biodiversity (IYB). During the course of the IYB, events were held across the world to raise public awareness of the importance of biological diversity to human well-being.

Collecting specimens in Montserrat

What is CBD?

CBD stands for Convention on Biological Diversity. The CBD is an international treaty and framework convention aimed at developing legal, policy and scientific initiatives about the conservation and management of biodiversity. It was developed after governments acknowledged the importance of the earth's biological resources for humanity's economic and social development. At the same time, there was broad recognition that threats to species and ecosystems were increasing at an alarming rate.

As a result, the CBD was born at the international Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, along with two other important conventions: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention on Desertification (UNCCD). The CBD came into force in 1993 after 168 counries signed up to the orginal terms. There are now 193 parties to the CBD - signifying the importance of biodiversity for almost all governments. The Convention has three main objectives: to conserve biodiversity, to use biological resources sustainably, and to ensure that the benefits arising from genetic resources are shared equally.

About the Conference of the Parties

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the Convention. It meets every two years to make decisions about the work of the Convention. CBD activities are divided into seven thematic programmes of work which correspond to some of the major biomes on the planet. There are also some cross-cutting issues which are highly relevant to Kew’s work, such as the work programme on building capacity for taxonomy (the GTI), the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), the 2010 Biodiversity Target, and access and benefit sharing.

At the COP, parties decide which key issues they will prioritise in their countries, and a timeline for achievement of any agreed work. Implementation of the work programmes depends on contributions from Parties, the Secretariat, relevant intergovernmental and other organisations.

As Kew helped develop the CBD’s Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which aims to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity, staff from Kew will attend the meeting to help advise policymakers on the importance of plant diversity for human well-being. Kew will jointly host a booth at the meeting where we will provide information about Kew's work.