BfN Schriften 524 - Vilm ABS Dialogue 2018 – Informing about Domestic Measures for Access to Genetic Resources: Final Report
Nagoya Protocol
BfN-Schriften
After entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol and the corresponding Regulation (EU) No. 511/2014, European users of genetic resources (GR) are required to "exercise due diligence" to ensure that they have acquired GR or associated traditional knowledge (aTK) in accordance with the national access procedures of the respective provider country. In Germany, as in other EU member states, “competent national authorities” (CNAs) for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) are in the course of formation and a first meeting of European CNAs already took place in March 2017 on Vilm-Island. One of the discussed implementa-tion challenges was the availability of transparent and reliable national access regulations in provider countries. CNAs, as the German Nagoya CNA-Unit, are repeatedly being asked for information and advice in this regard. But the ABS Clearing House (ABS-CH), designed as the key tool for information exchange aiming at enhancing legal certainty, clarity, and transparency on procedures for access to GR, is not yet sufficiently populated and thus does not allow users to gather the relevant information for the vast majority of countries.
Author
Suhel al-Janabi, Ute Feit, Eva Fenster, Thomas Greiber and Peter Schauerte
Editor
Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
Year of publication
2019
Edition
524
Language
English
Pages
159
ISBN
978-3-89624-261-7
DOI
10.19217/skr524
Description
To foster the process of implementing the Nagoya Protocol, the Nagoya CNA - Unit of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) has organized a series of two inter-national ABS dialogues (August 2017 and September 2018) at the International Academy for Nature Conservation on the Baltic Sea Isle of Vilm, Germany. The dialogues aimed to provide an opportunity to identify and present best-practices on available, clear and trans-parent access regulations with representatives of CNAs/NFPs of provider countries. In this sense, the objective of the meetings was not to promote facilitated access, but rather to secure transparency, in order to allow users of GR to be better informed by European CNAs towards countries that have structured, clear, and transparent access measures in place.