Classical weed biological control and the Nagoya Protocol

Abstract: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol (NP)
establish the international legal framework for access and benefit sharing (ABS). The NP was
initiated in October 2014 and has been ratified by many countries active in classical weed
biological control. Whilst understanding the need for access and benefit sharing of biodiversity, the Nagoya Protocol was met with concern by the biological control community as many practitioners were sceptical of how efficiently it might be implemented in signatory states, and feared that it would significantly slow down the process of obtaining the necessary permissions to survey for, collect and export potential biological control agents (Prior Informed Consent (PIC) and Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT). The International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC) Global established a Commission on Access and Benefit Sharing in 2021 that has resulted in a selection of papers including a special issue of BioControl (2023) that essentially sets out a best practice for implementing the Nagoya Protocol in classical biological control. In kind benefit sharing through support of laboratories, student support, infrastructure sharing of agents has historically been a philosophy of the international weed biological control community. The weed biological control community has prided itself in practicing a public good science. The intentions of the NP are noble as it seeks to reward countries for protecting their biodiversity. However, the unintended consequences of the NP could be that only resource rich countries will be able to afford to practice classical biological control and it will be unaffordable to resource poor counties.