Escape the cold of Nairobi and
come out to hot, dusty, dry
Kitengela. The morning walk will
take you along the Kiserian and
Mbagathi looking at birds and
insects.

For those who wish to stay on, an
afternoon walk across the plains
will illustrate the challenges facing
conservation and biodiversity in the
region.

Meet at the Museum car park at 7:45 a.m. for 8:00 a.m.
departure or meet at Kitengela Glass parking at 9:00 a.m.
Bring your picnic lunch and drinking water.

Weekend trip to L'ol Dacha
(Caro and David White's)

Friday 25 - Sunday 27 August.

Costs per person will be 2000/- for the weekend if sharing a
banda and 1000/- for those bringing their own camping gear.
Uase with Jenny (892041) if you would like to come along,
as there are limited spaces, and discuss food contributions.

VIP^S

ATTENBOROUGH IN
PARADISE

Video about the Birds of
Paradise of Papua New Guinea

Monday! 4 August ‘00,

5:30 p.m. at the National
Museums of Kenya,Louis
Leakey M. Hall
Tronsport to town will be
available.

Catherine Ngarachu

The Taita / Rukinga Ranches are an enormous (800 sq. kms)
stretch of unspoilt private and community owned wilderness
that is nestled between Tsavo East and West It forms a
vital corridor route across the "Taru Desert" for a population
of almost one thousand elephants and one hundred lion as
they migrate between the Galana River in Tsavo East south
to the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Lake Jipe in Tsavo
West,

All overnights and meals, will be provided by the Taira
Discovery Centre (TDC) from lunch on the Thursday to the
packed lunch on the Tuesday.

Thursday 5 Meet at the Museum car parK at 7:00 a.m for
a 7:30 a.m. departure. Estimated travel time is 6 hours so |
carry a snack and enough to drink. Late afternoon bmawaik, !
around the centre, I

Friday 6 Full morning escorted birdwalk, while looking i
out for game. j

Saturdoy 7 Spend the day tracking the Taita/ Rukinga
elephants and learning about them.

Sunday 8 Day to Tsavo NP, or Taita Hills
Monday 9 Hike up Mt, Kasigau.

Tuesday 10 Departure after breakfast for Nairobi
What to bring: Binoculars and field guide and personal
effects. (Bedding with mosquito nets and drinking water is
provided). There is a small cash bar and gift shop
Book and pay by 15 September plus note declaration in
the Regular Activities coiumn of the newsletter.

Cost:

Per person sharing with meals 8500/-

Children U12 sharing with meals 4250/- |

Camping possible but no change in rote. j

Rates not inclusive of transport or park fees/Ranger fees. |

Action for Biodiversity Conservation

NATURE KENYA, P. O. Box 44486, Nairobi. Teh 749957 / 746090 Fax: 741049 E-math eanhs@africaonline,co.ke

T told you so - I We
should have turned
right.'

The Nature/vt’nva Newsletter

A^TlVin^S

{^pJeidVisit to Kitengela

- Sat 26 August '00

August 2000

WH-A-rS Ng^WI

Report on Fifth CONFERENCE OF
PARTIES (COPS) OF THE CONVENTION
ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY(CBD),
May 15 - 27, Nairobi

Nature Kenya was actively involved in the COPS of the
Convention on Biological Diversity. A number of staff
and members took part in the meeting, end Paul Matiku
of the Importont Bird Areas (IBA) programme was
invited to join the Kenyan delegation. Noture Kenya
and BirdLife International jointly managed o stand to
provide information and materials, and launched the
Africa IBA poster as a side event. Nature Kenya also
provided birdwalks for the delegates on the UNEP
grounds, recording a late migratory sedge warbler on
May 23.

T he Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was one of
the concrete, negotiated agreements to come out of the
Earth Summit - the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development - held in Rio dc Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Eight
years on, the CBD has been signed and ratified by 177
countries, who are the Parties to the Convention. Five
Conference of Parties (COP) have now been held.

At the COPS of the CBD in Nairobi in May, documents
seemed to breed like rabbits. For anyone sitting through, it
was easy to get lost in a maze of declarations and workplans
on what the world should be doing to conserve biodiversity,
and hard to see how these workplans were going to get
implemented. Vet the world takes the Convention on Biological
Diversity very seriously, as was evident by the participation
of over 900 government delegates, around 500 NSO
representatives, many representatives of private industry, and
over 60 representatives of Indigenous Peoples.

The CBD is followed with avid interest even by countries
which have not ratified the Convention, such as the United
States, Why is this? One reason is that the Convention serves
to debate issues that go to the core of globalisation, versus
the protection of non-economic values in an economic world.
Conservation is only one of the three objectives of the CBD
The other two, around which much of the debate revolves,
are the sustainoble use of biodiversity, and fair and equitable
sharing of the benefits of biodiversity. The latter two
objectives recognise that we cannot conserve biodiversity by
locking it up in a park or a zoo: use it, and use it equitably, or
lose it.

Regulating Living Modified Organisms

A major success for the Convention, a Biosafety Protocol was
agreed upon last January, allowing nations to regulate trade
in Genetically Modified Organisms, or as they are now called
LMOs (living modified organisms). LMOs logically come under
the umbrella of Biodiversity concerns, as there is fear that
careless use of genetically engineered organisms could unleash
dominant, foreign genes into ecosystems, and cause biological
simplification (loss of diversity).

The Protocol is an international legal agreement within
the Convention. It is designed to address the uncertainty
and incomplete nature of scientific knowledge on how LMOs
interact with biodiversity and the surrounding environment
Where previously such trade had no restrictions, now a
receiving country can choose to restrict trade in LMOs on
environmental or health grounds, and to set rules on liability
and labelling, while the burden of proof of safety falls to the
exporting country. This Protocol, if well implemented, can
serve to protect the interests of both consumers and farmers,
and to regulate the octivities of multi -national biotechnology
companies.

The Biosafety Protocol was opened for signature at
the Conference of Parties in Nairobi with great fanfare, and
has now been signed by 68 countries. It will, however,
undoubtedly face challenges from the World Trade
Organisation, which takes the position that restriction of
trade on environmental grounds is not allowed.

Owning Knowledge?

Similarly, issues of protection of traditional knowledge and
access to and benefit sharing from biodiversity are part of
the Convention on Biological Diversity. Here again, the
Convention is tackling, head-on, the major trade-environment
concerns that brought the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
meeting in Seattle, USA, to a standstill earlier this year

WTO is requiring countries that wish to trade under
its rules to pass and recognise standard intellectual property
rights and patent laws. Meanwhile, the open-ended working
group on Article 8(j) of the Convention is grappling with an
entirely different concept: that traditional knowledge of
biodiverse resources is held by communities, not by individuals,
and thus cannot become the sole property of an individual, to
be patented, bought and sold. When access to traditional
knowledge of biodiversity is granted to commercial
enterprises, the CBD Access and Benefit Sharing working
group is seeking ways to assure that the benefits are equitably
shared with the communities that have stewarded that
biodiversity. Right now, the world economy provides no such
assurances.

2

Who will win, David of the Biodiversity Convention or
the Solioth of globalisation? COPS sow the articulation of a
divided allegiance of countries seeking to both protect their
peoples' knowledge and to participate in the world economy.
For example, India has signed the WTO accord, and thus has
a conventional patent law in place. However, India has also
tried to database its peoples’ indigenous knowledge and send
this to every patent office in the world, to verify that this is
knowledge traditionally held and not a patentable innovation.

The working groups dealing with both Traditional
Knowledge and Access and Benefit Sharing were strengthened
and elaborated by this Conference of Parties, to continue the
dialogue, as these are not issues resolved overnight. Whether
these efforts will lead to legally-binding agreements, like that
of Biosafety, or international guiding principles, or merely more
documents and speeches, remains to be seen.

Focusing on Drylands

At COP5 the Convention specifically considered the needs of
dryland ecosystems and agricultural biodiversity and came up
with a solid list of recommended actions, including considering
the important role of water and land tenure systems in dryland
ecosystems. The COP agreed on a broad definition of
ogrobiodiversity that includes ecological services such as
nutrient cycling, pest and disease regulation (natural biological
control), pollination, wildlife habitats, hydrological cycle (even
montane forests that serve as watersheds), carbon
sequestration, and climate regulation. Specific actions to
conserve dryland and agricultural biodiversity were identified.

Leaving out Forests

A major omission at this COP, however, was that the
CBD declined to pick up much responsibility for conservation
of forest biodiversity. Forests have been without a home in
much of this international dialogue, as concerted efforts to
forge a forest convention have failed, due to suspicion that
such a convention might serve to legitimise destructive forest
trade practices. A forest forum (United Nations Forest
Forum) has just been established that is to be administered
by an as-yet-unidentified body of the United Nations
headquarters, but this is simply a forum, not a body that can
implement initiatives or projects.

The Convention on Biological Diversity, as an umbrella
convention touching on many of the key issues in forest
monagement and trade, such as the ecosystem approach and
access and benefit sharing, could bring a holistic perspective
to forest discussions. But at this COP, only a small technical
experts group has been set up to deal with forest biodiversity
issues. The broader option, of an open-ended working group,
was rejected. One can well ask, where are the NSOs, local
communities and indigenous peoples to be taken on board, on
this issue which is of great concern to the civil society sector?
As forests are to be o special concern at the next Conference
of Parties, in 2002, with a complete programme of work then
to be adopted, it is unfortunate the Parties have left this to
technical experts to draft, and not invoked the larger global
community concerned.

Banking on Tourism

The CBD has given a special focus to tourism os o test case of
its sustainable use objective. In this area, It has considerable
interaction with the ongoing work on this matter as promoted
by the Commission on Sustainable Development. Again, an
ostensibly "biodiversity" issue quickly turns into an economic
trade issue, as the convention decision states:

"According to WTO, tourism receipts accounted for ...
over 8 per cent of total world exports of goods and almost 35
per cent of the total world exports of services in 1997
Given that a high percentage of tourism involves visits to
naturally and culturally distinguished sites, generating large
amounts of revenue, there are clearly major opportunities for
investing in the maintenance and sustainable use of biological
resources. At the same time... historical observation indicates
that self-regulation of the tourism industry for sustainoble
use of biological resources has only rarely been successful."

In particular, the genuine sharing of tourism benefits
with local communities is an elusive goal. One hopes that the
CBD can do more to forge work programmes and mechanisms
to realise the potentials and avoid the pitfalls in the tourism
sector.

The Way Forward

What difference does this all make, at the end of the day?
While the CBD lacks strong legal definition (except for the
new Biosafety Protocol) what it does have is access to funding,
through the Global Environment Facility (GBF), This means
that countries, and civil society groups, can propose projects
to the GEF that realise the aims of the work programmes so
defined in these Conferences of Parties, and possibly receive
funds to implement these projects. Moreover, countries that
have signed the CBD are required to develop National
Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, implementing the
multiple promises made in the articles of the convention. It
will remain the task of civil society, within countries, to demand
that these plans are well developed and see the light of day,
not lost in competing demonds to hook up with a steamrollering
world economy that cares little for sea turtles and pastorolist
livelihoods. NGOs at the CBD COP5 concluded their summary
statement to the conference by pledging to apply their tolents
responsibly to fulfill the noble objectives and aims so as to
empower this admittedly small, but extremely important
convention. People and groups wishing to continue to track
the various issues of the CBD may contact ELCI, who will
continue to co-ordinate NGO communications around the CBD.

Barbara Gemmill

Executive Director, Environment Liaison Centre International,
Box 72461, Nairobi. Tel: 562022 Fax. 562175
Email: barbarag@elciafrica.org

More information for those with Internet access:

Global Environment Facility: www.gefweb.org

Full text of the Convention: http://www.biodiv.org/chm/conv/

default.html

Simplified : http://nairobi,icipe.org/elci/CBDsimplified.pdf

More information: http://www.undp.org/bpsp

Dally newsletter, C0P5: http://www.ukabc.org/cop5.htmi

Friends of Nairobi
Arboretum (FONA)

Rirdwo "*
A t^Rirdwolk _

B irdwalk __

Video _

Pn* * Putin)

Birdwalk _

p;«id trip to
T 07 Trip to L'oL
Tree Wolk _

Importing El(rf(Ah\is 10

BiitlUfi'

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por

I ^ Ufltrl on £vcr

third Sunday . i^nch, binoculars,

*T’’ddr.°r.nd»edt..9-W<>'”
anendms ""

“Pot Luck”.

hence

TKS^ VJAl-K

Arboretum guided Tree Walks on the
last Monday of every month i e 28
August from 9:30 o.m. Meet at the
FONA offices beside the Sirl Guides
HQ.

W^PN^SPAY

5i^PWAUKS

Bird watching walks at sites in and around
Nairobi. Meet at the National Museum car
park every Wednesday at 8;45 a.m. Re urn
about 12:30 p.m. Those who are not

rnembers can get temporary membe ship

at Kshs 100 per birdwalk, payable on
arrival at the car park.

^^WKO SOKOK^
(^A57J

The Saturday birdwatch with the Arabuko
Sokoke Forest Guides Association is on the
first Saturday of each month i.e. 5 August,
at 6:30 a.m. from the Visitor Centre, Gede'
Cost 100/- per person.

Pe^UAI^nON

m

Da

IITT^S ANP
Loj^rs

MIortant bird

PROGRAMME

EOED URGENTLY
;LD FACILITATOR
AMEGA PROJECT

at least o first degree in a
sed field, preferobly
ol studies?

an understanding of rural
and the local cultural

report

iterate with good
ring and verbal communication

le and willing to work long
field when required?

able to work
linary team?

;ve good conflict resolution

energetic, enthusiastic,
outgoing, patient, and a good

e a clear and demonstrable
t to conservation?
e some basic accounting/
ing skills?

your knowledge of birds, bird
ion, eco-tourism?

ve the ability to Speak any of

dialects?

ikely to be the person we are
Please drop you CV and
aMlI^^ion to the Advocacy and
iNet«ior|s(ng Manager, at Nature Kenya.

Nature

Kenya does not accept any
responsibility whatsoever in respect of'
negligence of any of its staff, volunteers or
members organising the outings/trips or for
any for loss, injury, death or damage to
property.

PIAB.Y

and atssociafo^i

wtotllv to?

COMPOST MAKING COURSE

Monday 11 September '00

This course is for gardeners, and
illustrates how they can turn waste
from the kitchen or gorden into useful
compost manure.

To book call Daniel Kathurima at the
Nature Kenya office. Charges 250/-
per person. Gardeners meet at the
Arboretum main gate at 9.00 a m. and
finish at 12.30 p.m

Bird Hotline

Rufous-tailed Weavers,

S Spur-winged Plover

Lookout Hill, Masai Mara/ Jut
Ninian Lewis d Dave Richards

Pair of Chestnut Weavers

Langata/Ju!

Sophie Walker

Pale Wren Warbler, Tobora (Long¬
tailed) Cisticola,

Bare-faced So Away Bird

Kacheche Camp, Masai Mara/July
Elly Sathungu

Secretary Bird

3000m up eastern Mt. Kenya/Jut
Bernard Agwondo

African Black Duck, Green-headed
Sunbird, Thick-billed Seedeater

Naro Moru River Lodge/Jul
Shoilesh Patei

Narina's Trogon

Nairobi Arboretum/Jul
Wednesday Morning Birdwalk

White faced Whistling Ducks,
Denham's Bustard

Mara Triangle/Jun
Japheth Mwok