Biodiversity Convention

The precautionary approach (PA) is an important element of environmental law that is used to address a potential risk whether or not that risk can be demonstrated or its consequences identified. The static use of a sole, generally accepted definition of the PA is extremely difficult, since this cannot meet the multitude of needs in important legislative tools introduced in many conventions designed to protect biodiversity. The way out will be a more discursive model, a model that allows for adaptation to specific conditions and which enforces solution-oriented procedures. 

In sustainable agricultural systems, biodiversity has fundamental importance by providing a range of biological services including natural enemies. In conventional farming systems, these services are effectively substituted by external inputs. 

UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme (1998) Report of the fourth meeting of the parties to the convention on biodiversity. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP/CBD/COP/4/27... 

Hominick WM, Reid AP, Bohan DA, Briscoe BR. Entomopathogenic nematodes Biodiversity geographical distributions and the convention biological diversity. Biocont Sci Tech. 1996 6 317-331. 

Furthermore, the extraction of non-conventional oil has other detrimental environmental impacts, such as water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Depending on the depth of the deposits, oil sands are either strip mined in open pits or heated so that the bitumen from which the non-conventional oil is extracted can flow to the surface (in-situ extraction). Both forms of oil-sands extraction require considerable amounts of energy (i.e., natural gas) and water, and lead to significant detrimental environmental impacts (Woynillowicz et al., 2005 see also Chapter 3). 

There are now new rules for biodiversity prospecting regarding the collection of natural products. The 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established sovereign national rights over biological resources and committed member countries to conserve them, develop them sustainably, and share the benehts resulting from their use. 

As far as biodiversity of domestic floral species is concerned, research results concentrate on measuring the parameters crop rotation diversity, number of cultivated crops and grassland composition. Hausheer et al. (1998), evaluated crop rotations on 110 organic, integrated and conventional farms in a Swiss pilot farm project and determined the following situations on organic farms. 

As far as set-aside is concerned, several authors state organic farming provides a higher potential of biodiversity due to a higher proportion of land set aside compared with conventional farms (ENTEC 1995 Mader et al. 1996 Stopes 1995). 

---