The Convention on Biological Diversity at UN Earth Summit
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was opened for signatures on 5 June 1992 at the United Nations Conference (UNCED) on Environment and Development (the Rio “Earth Summit”) and entered into force on 29 December 1993 as a legally binding global treaty which Australia signed. The CBD is said to be “inspired by the world community’s growing commitment to sustainable development.” the result of UNEP ad hoc intergovernmental workshops starting in 1988, including a sub-workshop on biotechnology as “a valuable contribution to resource conservation and sustainable development.” At it’s core, the Biodiversity Convention’s “true mission was capturing and using biodiversity for the sake of the biotechnology industry,” and “protecting the pharmaceutical and emerging biotechnology industries”. [1, 2] “[T]he convention implicitly equates the diversity of life – animals and plants – to the diversity of genetic codes, for which read genetic resources. By doing so, diversity becomes something modern science can manipulate.” [3, 4] This convention treaty sets up the justification for classifying, mapping and cataloguing nature down to it’s genetic code using emerging technologies from that time. Starting with the Global Taxonomy Initiative (GTI), justified as “taxonomy is essential to implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity,” 1986 - US..> READ MORE