Policies and practices of various Asian and European parties came into sharp focus during the meeting of the signators of the Biodiversty Convention to protect the world‘s endangered species and biological heritage in Kuala Lumpur in February.

A second phase of the international gathering was devoted to the first meeting of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety from February 23 to 27.

The events and participants, however, also turned into a broad-ranging review and criticism of the developments and records to date in living up to the spirit of its provisions to protect and stimulate the existence of plants and other biological resources.

Activities alleged to have been carried out in the region were part of the general debates at the meeting and associated with it. Nongovernmental organisations used the occasion to point to what said was a continuing practice of illegal logging in the region of threatened or protected hardwood forests. They particularly pointed to such operations said to be taking place either in Indonesia or Malaysia and the smuggling of such timber products through port facilities at Johor in Malaysia. The charges were denied by the two countries which replied that they were actively engaged in implementing the international accords aimed at protecting such forests. But the issue, which had existed before the meeting, also continued well after it with additional reports and allegations about practices in the region.

In addition, delegates heard calls for a possible linking of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Climate Change since preservation of peat swamps and forests can also serve as “carbon sinks“ that can absorb emissions of greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.

But a number of developing countries said they were unable to bear the financial and administrative burden of protecting some of their vast resources without the assistance of the major economies, such as the European Union, the US, Japan and others.

The EU has for years provided financial and technical assistance to Indonesia to aid in the protection and development of a vast tropical rain forest region there.

Irish Environment Minister.Martin Cullen assisted at the Ministerial-Level portion of the talks in Kuala Lumpur in his capacity as President of the EU Council of Ministers along with EU Commissioner for the Environment Margot Wallstrom. Cullen told the delegates that the EU is strongly engaged in fulfilling all the objectives of the Biodiversity Convention and all the other major conventions and goals such as the Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol and the goals of the Sustainable Development Summit. He added that "At a time when the world seeks signs of life on other planets, let us not forget the protection of life here on Earth. Biodiversity - the air we breath, the food we eat, the medicines we use and the nature we enjoy – matters."

Among the key measures agreed in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration are a set of indicators to measure achievements in reducing biodiversity loss by 2010, and the establishment of a global network of protected areas for both land and sea.

The Minister concluded that; "Agreement on indicators is a critical bedrock of the Declaration. You will never have actions if you don't set targets. Paper exercises alone will achieve little. The identification of appropriate indicators will increase visibility on what we are doing, thus enabling people to measure and explain progress. While there was considerable resistance on some fronts to indicators, Europe is pleased that we managed to get agreement."

In addition, to coincide with the Biodiversity and Biosafety talks, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) in Singapore, in conjunction with the UN University in Tokyo, organised a seminar on the issues linked to the World Trade Organisation system and biodiversity in Kuala Lumpur on February 21.

The ASEF-UN University informal workshop was attended by delegates from Asia and Europe to international meetings and was termed “The High-Level Dialogue on Trade, Biotechnology and Sustainable Development.” An ASEF statement following the meeting said that surfaced at the session was a fundamental conflict between multilateral environmental agreements and trade agreements. These were said to arise mainly because some states and business groups interpret environmental regulations as potential barriers to trade. This was said to be particularly the case of the application of the “precautionary principle” to protect the environment from potential risks from biotechnological products. The main output of the discussions was a recommendation for a international dispute settlement mechanism to settle clashes arising from conflicting interpretations. Such a mechanism could possibly form part of a reform of the UN, the participants suggested.

Among the other subjects discussed were patenting of life forms, labelling of genetically-modified organisms and the dispute between the EU and the US on GMOs, intellectual property protection and indigenous knowledge, developing countries and bio-technology and compatibility between existing international plant and animal regulations and the Cartagena Protocol.