The five-day Meeting of Parties (MoP-6) to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety concluded here on Friday with a call to nations to involve local communities in policy decisions on adapting genetically modified organisms.

The MoP-6 also decided to set up an international ad hoc expert committee to decide on economic considerations of the people involved.

It called for giving utmost importance to the wishes of the indigenous and local people before a country decides on new genetically modified (GM) crops.

India as the new Chair of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) played a key role in pushing the agenda on socio-economic considerations.

This is the first time the CBD’s major thrust is on socio-economic considerations of the local people on biosafety issues arising out of living modified organisms (LMOs) and genetically modified crops.

The MoP-6 adopted 18 key decisions unanimously with all parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety accepting the need to conduct research on the socio-economic impact of LMOs to fill the knowledge gaps and identify specific socio-economic issues, including those with positive impacts.

The key issues were the supplementary protocol on liability and redress of damage to biodiversity by LMOs, trans-boundary movement of LMOs, monitoring and reporting, and budgetary provisions.

“We are happy with the progress. The mood at the conference was very good. There were some difficult issues, but overall the progress is good.

With today's decisions, discussions on biosafety ends in the current round and from Monday we will take up a whole new agenda on the convention of biological diversity," said Dr Braulio F. de Souza Dias, executive secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity.

One issue that saw considerable discussions and some divergence pertained to socio-economic considerations, a key point for many of the 192 member countries of the Convention.

The conference decided to appoint an ad hoc technical group that will go into the issues related to socio-economic considerations of different countries and regions. The group consists of eight members from each of the five regions.

"The group is expected to complete its report by the time of the next edition of the Conference of Parties two years later.

This is an important issue for many countries, including India, as biodiversity is closely linked to livelihood," said M. F. Farooqui, Special Secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Forest.

The group will map out what kind of socio-economic considerations should go with each region and country. "So far socio economic considerations were not given a specific shape, but this will now address the issue," he added.

Another issue that saw some concern among delegates was budgetary provisions to support member countries to implement the protocol. It was estimated that a core budget of $ 5,102 million was needed, apart from voluntary contribution and trust fund.

"All member countries will be contributing to this core budget depending on their gross national product, as per the UN scale. Richer countries will contribute more and vice-versa," Dr Braulio said.

As a follow-up to Friday's decisions, all member countries will now have to implement these in the context of their environment.

"India will need some policy initiatives to implement these decisions. But we do not need new laws, as our existing legal framework is robust to cover these issues," Mr Farooqui said.

He said India would also like to host meetings and regional workshops to help other countries implement these decisions.

Decisions please Meeting of Parties

The Meeting of Parties (MoP-6) on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety ended on Friday after deliberations for five days regarding the 18 items on the agenda, with consensus reached on most issues.

Charles Gbedemah, principal officer of biosafety, Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), said that socio-economic considerations and risk assessment were two issues that went slow.

Some countries, however, had problems with the handling, transport, packaging and identification (HTPI) of living modified organisms (LMO).

Some of the delegates said that the developed countries did not want these to be identified as it would affect the corporations that produced them.

Dr T. Chatterjee, secretary, ministry of environment and forests, while acknowledging that many countries were against identification, said that India was in favour of it.

The contact group on socio-economic considerations agreed to take stock of the impact of LMOs and establish an ad hoc technical expert group.

Sources in a contact group on risk assessment said the parties were reasonably happy with the final decisions taken as they thought it could have been much worse.