Thaís Brianezi
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Pinhais (Paraná) - "We classify the COP-8 as a big cop out, a lost opportunity," affirmed the Greenpeace International adviser on Forests, Martin Kaiser. "The negotiations failed; they drifted like a ship without a captain."

The non-governmental organization's chief criticism of the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP-8) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which ended on Friday (31), was the failure to define a clear work agenda (with concerted general guidelines and time limits) for the elaboration of an international system of access to genetic resources and the traditional knowledge associated with them, as well as the sharing of benefits. In other words, a system of global rules regulating state-of-the-art animal and plant research that makes use of knowledge belonging to local populations (communities of Indians, descendants of runaway slaves, or extractive workers, for example) and establishing mechanisms to share the profits and technology derived from the use of such resources and knowledge with the local populations.

"In effect, the discussions were postponed once more. This is, in fact, a strategy adopted by the United States and its group of puppets to print biodiversity on a bar code," Paulo Adário, coordinator of the Greenpeace Amazon project, alleged.

Another negative point denounced by the environmental activists was the prospect of a decrease in funds for the Global Environmental Facility. In its budget proposal for 2007, the US government proposes to reduce its contribution from US$ 107 million to US$ 56 million, and there are fears that other countries will follow suit.

Translation: David Silberstein