Oct 29/10 - Pt 1: Biodiversity

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Today's guest host was Gillian Findlay.

PART ONE

It's Friday, October 29th.

Using Twitter, an Ontario cabinet minister tweeted that Conservative politicians are bigots.

Currently, Sticks and stones may break my bones but tweets will never --and I'm out of characters.

This is The Current.

Biodiversity - Richard Black (Updated Audio)

We started this segment with just one example of a new product, Echinoforce based on very old knowledge. Drug and food companies, agri-resource businesses and cosmetics firms generate billions of dollars every year selling herbal remedies and traditional healing products.

Right now, most of that money stays with the companies that make and market the products. But many governments would like that to change that. They'd like to see more of the money shared with the countries where the products originate and with the indigenous peoples who often are the first to discovered their medicinal properties.

Of course the companies making the products see things a bit differently. And that battle is threatening to block international efforts to preserve global biodiversity. For the last two weeks, representatives from 193 countries, including Canada, have been meeting in Nagoya, Japan in a bid to update the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Richard Black is the Environment Correspondent for the BBC and he's attending the conference in Nagoya, Japan.

Articles: With UN nature talks stalling, Japan offers $2 bln / At Japan biodiversity meeting, access to resources divides rich and poor / Factbox: World nears agreement on pact to share nature's riches / Snaring the Wealth: Can Negotiators Reach a Uniform Position on Patenting the World's Genetic Resources? / EU, Canada 'Dodos of the Week'

Biodiversity - Merle Alexander

Merle Alexander has spent 12 years advocating on behalf of indigenous organizations at the Convention on Biological Diversity. He's an aboriginal lawyer practicing sustainable law and is a partner with the firm, Bull, Housser and Tupper. He has a special interest in intellectual property rights for traditional knowledge. Merle Alexander was in Vancouver.

The Current did put in a request to speak with the Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice who attended the conference in Nagoya. He's now in China and due to his schedule, was unavailable for an interview this morning.