Antara 28 Jun 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia as the current chair of ASEAN is encouraging other Southeast Asian nations to ratify the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization.
"As the current chair of ASEAN, we always encourage ASEAN member states to ratify the Nagoya Protocol soon," Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta told a discussion at the Press Council building here Tuesday.
Indonesia is among the 24 countries signing the protocol on May 11, 2011. The protocol will be put into force only if it has been ratified by 50 countries.
Thank God, a number of developed countries such as Spain and Japan had also signed the protocol, he said.
Arief Yuwono, deputy for environmental destruction and climate change control to the environment minister said the ministry was making approaches to the House of Representatives (DPR) and other relevant parties to enact a law ratifying the protocol.
He said the protocol gave a number of benefits to Indonesia among others it confirmed the country`s sovereignty to its biodiversity sources and protect its genetic sources and traditional knowledge.
The Nagoya protocol was adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its tenth meeting on 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan.
Indonesia is the world`s second largest mega biodiversity after Brazil.
ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
(T.D016/S012/HAJM/B003)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
