NAMIBIAN biodiversity expert Kauna Schroeder has been elected chairperson of the compliance committee of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing under the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Schroeder is the principal project coordinator and adviser to the Office of the Environmental Commissioner in the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism. She was elected at the committee’s virtual third meeting held recently.
The Nagoya Protocol is a legally-binding agreement aimed at ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the commercial utilisation of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge. Before being elected, Schroeder was a full member of the committee representing the African region.
The chairperson and the vice chairperson of the committee serve for a period of two years. Dr Tianbao Qin was elected the vice chairperson. Duties of the Nagoya Protocol Compliance Committee are to monitor compliance of parties to submit national reports and help those parties facing difficulties with compliance.
Namibia is an active party to the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol, which was adopted on 10 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan.
The other two objectives of the CBD are the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of its components. Schroeder serves as Namibia’s focal point for the Nagoya Protocol and spearheaded the finalisation of Namibia’s Access and Benefit Sharing and Associated Traditional Act which was promulgated in 2017.
The Nagoya Protocol compliance committee is composed of members drawn from five regions of the world: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and Western Europe.
Because of the global acceptance that indigenous people and local communities depend hugely on biological and genetic resources, the CBD has allowed these groups to be represented in the committee.
The CBD is one of three multi-lateral environmental agreements that were adopted at the 1992 landmark Rio Earth Summit.
The other two are the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
