Cuba advocates for a fair and equitable use of genetic resources

The Caribbean island confirmed its commitment to the Nagoya Protocol on the Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits arising out of their Utilization (ABS).

Cuba has now become the 66^th State party adhere to this protocol. One of its goals is the implementation of an international regime for the fair and equitable distribution of benefits arising from the usage of genetic resources.

The Nagoya Protocol means a new step opposed to biopiracy or the illegal appropriation of genetic resources without the proper authorization of their countries of origin.

At the same time, it aims at reducing the technological gap between developing countries, rich in biodiversity (providers of genetic resources) and developed countries (users of those genetic resources).

Similarly, the ABS has the tendency of fostering the sustainable conservation and use of biological diversity. Thus, biotechnological

procedures have turned genetic resources into raw material to valuable products that can be found in the pharmaceutical industry, followed by the agricultural, phytosanitary, and cosmetic industry, among the most important ones.

The protocol has a binding nature and carries out the third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed by state members in Nairobi, Kenya in 1992.

The ABS was adopted during the X Conference of the Parties in October 2010, in Nagoya, Japan.

Cubasi Translation Staff