Consideration of the Ecosystem Approach by the Conference of Parties
At its
second meeting, held in Jakarta, November 1995, the
Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the ecosystem approach as the primary framework for action under the Convention, and subsequently has referred to the ecosystem approach in the elaboration and implementation of the various thematic and cross-cutting issues work programmes under the Convention (
Decision II/8)
The thematic and cross-cutting issues concerned include:
At its
fourth meeting in Bratislava in May 1998, the Conference of the Parties, acknowledged the need for a workable description and further elaboration of the ecosystems approach, and requested
the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) "to develop principles and other guidance on the ecosystem approach, taking into consideration, inter alia, the results of the Malawi workshop, and to report thereon to the
Conference of the Parties at its fifth meeting".
COP 6 requested the Executive Secretary to prepare a report drawn from case studies, to convene a meeting of experts to compare the ecosystem approach with sustainable forest management, and to develop proposals for the refinement of the principles and operational guidance of the ecosystem approach (
decision VI/12, paragraph 2 and
decision VI/22, paragraph 19). The above study should be reported to SBSTTA 9.
Other COP 6 decisions relevant to ecosystem approach include:
decision VI/2, Biological diversity of inland waters;
decision VI/5 Agricultural biological diversity;
decision VI/7, Identification, monitoring, indicators and assessments;
decision VI/8, Global Taxonomy Initiative;
decision VI/9, Global Strategy for Plant Conservation;
decision VI/10, Article 8(j) and related provisions;
decision VI/22, Forest Biological Diversity;
decision VI/23, Alien Species that threaten ecosystems, habitats or species and
decision VI/25, National Reports.
The seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties agreed that the priority at this time should be on facilitating the implementation of the ecosystem approach as the primary framework for addressing the three objectives of the Convention in a balanced way, and that a potential revision of the principles of the ecosystem approach should take place only at a later stage, when the application of the ecosystem approach has been more fully tested (
decision VII/11). The COP welcomed implementation guidelines and annotations to rationale in annex 1 to
decision VII/11.
The seventh meeting of COP also requested an analysis of the range of existing tools and approaches consistent with the Convention’s ecosystem approach, as well as the development of a web-based “sourcebook” for the ecosystem approach, accessible through the clearinghouse mechanism. The sourcebook will include a database of case studies searchable by biome/ecoregion and sector.
