A journalist’s guide to biodiversity access and benefit-sharing

The Earth Journalism Network organized the webinar: An End to Biopiracy? A Journalist’s Guide to Biodiversity Access and Benefit-Sharing, a session specially dedicated to journalists that report on biodiversity.

This event took place on Wednesday, February 24, 2021. Expert speakers explained the basics of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and the Nagoya Protocol, as tools to prevent illegal access and misappropriation of genetic resources – the genetic material present in plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms- and associated traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.

The session also provided insights to those who will cover the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiations at COP15, in Kunming. The webinar, moderated by Mike Shanahan, Project Coordinator of Internews, featured Krystyna Swiderska, Principal Researcher in the Natural Resources Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and Alejandro Lago, Project Manager of the UNDP-GEF Global ABS Project, as guest speakers.

Available Resources

View the recording of the webinar here.

Other resources shared in the session:

• Maca: The dubious aphrodisiac Chinese biopirates took from Peru’
• ABS Clearing House: Information exchange for the Convention on Biological Diversity 
• ABS success stories from Mexico, Botswana, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Jordan
• ABS is Genetic Resources for Sustainable Developmentdocument, a publication of the UNDP-GEF Global ABS Project on the impact of access and benefit-sharing and sustainable development goals