Mr Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon Deputy Ministers, hon members, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen, I rise on behalf of the Portfolio Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs on this occasion to recommend, in terms of section 231(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996, that the House approve the Nagoya Protocol, which the committee has unanimously adopted.
Having considered the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity on 5 September 2012, the committee accepts that the many intergovernmental negotiations on the environment and sustainable development can make slow progress and in some instances lack ambition. This particular protocol has taken 18 years for the international community to agree to.
However, the Nagoya Protocol gives substance and effect to establishing a system for achieving one of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, that is, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits that arise from genetic resources.
The protocol provides a strong basis for legal certainty and transparency for both provider and user countries of genetic resources and their associated knowledge.
We hope it comes into force in the next year or two. The process of adopting it has happened and some 90-odd countries have signed it, but only five have ratified it. So, it will still take a while before it comes into effect. However, we hope that at that stage it will create new incentives for countries to protect their natural capital, while enabling businesses to develop useful new products from biological resources in a sustainable way.
An interesting aspect of the Nagoya Protocol is that, whilst it is mainly concerned with benefit sharing between states, it includes two potential safeguards for protecting the rights of indigenous people and local communities.
The Nagoya Protocol firstly requires countries to support the development of community protocols. This means that communities decide whether to permit the use of their knowledge or genetic resources, and on what terms. An example of this is what has happened with the healers in Bushbuckridge in our own country, who used their protocol to conserve medicinal plants, gain access to plants in a protected area, and negotiate more effectively with a cosmetic company in regard to those genetic resources.
Community protocols, therefore, have an important role to play in implementing the protocol. According to a report drafted by the international institute for environment and development, and I quote, -
Where emphasis is placed on the process of developing community protocols - rather than just the product - these protocols are more likely to strengthen community values and institutions that conserve biodiversity and traditional knowledge ...
It also points out that countries and donors must ensure communities receive the support they need to develop their protocols.
Secondly, it requires countries to take measures to ensure that communities can control access to their traditional knowledge by giving their free, prior, informed consent. This means that communities decide whether to permit the use of their knowledge or genetic resources, and on what terms. We therefore recommend accordingly. Thank you. [Applause.]
There was no debate.
Question put: That the Nagoya Protocol on access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation to the Convention on Biological Diversity be approved.
Agreed to.
Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation to the Convention on Biological Diversity approved.