|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Through its Biodiversity and Wildlife Program, CIEL promotes the development and enforcement of an international framework of law and policy that supports conservation and sustainable use of living resources, including biodiversity, wildlife, forests and fisheries.
One program strategy is to strengthen international legal mechanisms that reward local conservation efforts. Another is to reform international law in other fields -- in particular trade and intellectual property rules -- so they support rather than impede conservation. A third is to promote effective implementation of international conservation agreements.
What is Biodiversity, and Why is it Important?
Biodiversity makes up the structure of the ecosystems and habitats that support essential living resources, including wildlife, fisheries and forests. It helps provide for basic human needs such as food, shelter, and medicine. And it is increasingly threatened by destructive human activities.
Examine recent announcements regarding biodiversity.
Law Reform to Protect Biodiversity
and Other Biological Resources
Protecting the earth's biological resources involves legal as well as economic, political, and cultural elements, and must have an international dimension. Biodiversity is ultimately conserved or lost because of community and individual decisions about the use of land and resources, but those local decisions are routinely influenced by international law and policies.
Strengthening International
Conservation Law
CIEL's efforts to strengthen international conservation agreements emphasize the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), as well as international fisheries law (see section on Marine Conservation).
CIEL’s marine conservation work has focused on strengthening the legal framework for fisheries protection, particularly the formation of regional fisheries organizations and effective enforcement of their requirements. CIEL has also worked to enhance protection of marine and coastal biodiversity under the Biodiversity Convention.
International trade policies have a significant impact on the earth's biodiversity and biological resources. They can undermine national and international conservation laws and policies. Trade liberalization can also increase exploitation of natural resources and exacerbate the associated negative impacts on biodiversity. CIEL seeks to reform trade rules so that they support rather than impede conservation and sustainable use.
Intellectual Property
and Biodiversity
Biodiversity and knowledge about it are valuable in part because of their "information content." As one of the main ways that our society decides who has the rights to control and benefit from information, intellectual property rights are relevant to the information content of biodiversity. CIEL addresses the implications of intellectual property through advocacy, research, and advice.
Integrating economic and environmental policy is essential to an effective strategy for biodiversity conservation. CIEL works to encourage policy reforms that remove incentives for destroying habitat while expanding the use of economic incentives for conservation.
CIEL provides information on biodiversity-related legal issues in response to requests from activists and environmental lawyers in other countries.
Proceed to view CIEL's publications regarding biodiversity and wildlife.
Proceed to view biodiversity-related links.
Contacts for More Information:
For more information please contact:
-- on the ayahuasca patent case: CIEL Attorney Glenn Wiser, gwiser@ciel.org,
-- on CITES: Senior Attorney Anne Perrault, or Wildlife Counsel Chris Wold, chris@elaw.org,
-- for all other questions, and for information on the program generally: Anne Perrault, aperrault@ciel.org.
Support for the Biodiversity & Wildlife Program is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Moriah Fund. In recent years, support for specific activities has been provided by the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Humane Society of the United States, Greenpeace, the Aurora Foundation, the Angelica Foundation, the Ahimsa Foundation, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the World Wildlife Fund-US, IUCN-the World Conservation Union, and the US Environmental Protection Agency.