U.S. May Refuse to Sign World Wildlife Treaty

Negotiators from 97 nations on Friday completed a treaty in Nairobi to spur countries to conserve the world’s wildlife and its habitats, but the United States indicated it may not sign the pact at an upcoming world environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Scientists believe as many as half the planet’s species will be doomed to extinction by the middle of the next century unless action is taken now to stem the loss of wildlands, particularly tropical forests.

But a senior Bush Administration official said Friday that the United States may refuse to sign the treaty because it sets too few conservation requirements for developing nations, leaves open the possibility of an inefficient new financing mechanism and may provide insufficient patent protection for the American biotechnology industry.

The pact, which is scheduled to be the second major treaty signed in Brazil, represents another potential disappointment for those who had hoped the summit would produce an effective strategy for halting environmental degradation around the world.

The first treaty on climate change failed to contain specific targets and timetables for reducing emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. The United States has been blamed for diluting strong requirements in both treaties.

Other nations also have expressed reservations about the conservation pact, indicating it may be in jeopardy in Rio.

The treaty, completed in talks in Nairobi during the past two weeks, calls on nations to inventory their plants, animals and other species and attempt to protect them. Nations would be required to make conservation a consideration in national planning.

Environmental impact statements would be required for federal projects that would harm wildlife and its habitats, already mandated in the United States. Other nations also would have to be consulted if their wildlife were threatened by such a project.

In an attempt to give developing nations a financial stake in conserving nature, the pact says countries have sovereignty over their wildlife, can determine access to it and should be allowed to enjoy its benefits, whether it is used for medicine, agriculture or industry.

At the same time, the agreement recognizes that natural diversity remains a “common concern of all peoples” and encourages nations to share it.

To promote a flow of scientific information to developing nations, the proposed treaty calls upon countries to cooperate in research and development projects, such as efforts to find new drugs in a rain forest and, when possible, do the work in the country where the material originated.

In the past, developing countries have earned little or nothing from discoveries of plants within their borders even when these later were used to produce commercially successful drugs.

The pact also says that patents should not be so restrictive that they hamper access to technologies needed by another country to conserve. For example, developing countries want access to technological improvements in agriculture that would allow them to use less land for farming and more for conservation.

Although the proposed treaty would not supplant a nation’s right to protect patents, it recognizes that such protection could interfere with conservation.

“Until now, patent protection stood unassailed, and now someone is banging on the walls of the citadel,” said Richard Mott, who monitored the talks in Nairobi for the World Wildlife Fund.

Environmental groups, while unhappy with some of the vague commitments, called on President Bush to sign it. Without U.S. support, the agreement has little chance of receiving substantial financial and global support, the activists argued.

But U.S. representatives, echoing concerns by some other industrialized nations, complained that the pact pledges aid to help developing nations conserve without requiring them to put up their own money.

Specifically, officials pointed to a provision saying developing countries are obligated to implement commitments under the treaty “to the extent that developed countries provide financial resources and transfer of technology.”

So without aid, said Curtis Bohlen, an assistant secretary of state who has been following the negotiations from Washington, “the country has no obligation to do anything.”

But the biggest U.S. reservation is to language Bohlen said could result in the creation of a separate fund for wildlife projects.

The United States and other developed nations want to funnel aid through the Global Environmental Facility, administered by the World Bank and two U.N. agencies.

These nations oppose a separate funding mechanism for several reasons, including the fear that administrative overhead would eat up too much of the money. The specific amount of funding for conservation under the treaty would be determined later.

Developing nations, on the other hand, want more control over projects that receive aid and they distrust the Global Environmental Facility’s intentions to share decision-making with them. Environmental groups also are wary of the facility, complaining that the World Bank has previously approved environmentally unsound projects.

Bohlen complained that the final draft was rushed through to ensure that a treaty would be ready to sign in Rio next month. The Bush Administration, he said, will not decide whether to sign it until its lawyers study it.

“We haven’t had the opportunity to review the full text, and until we do, it is hard to come to a conclusion as to its merit--whether it is in the U.S.’s interest to sign or not,” Bohlen said.

Other nations also expressed strong reservations. France, which wanted the treaty to provide a list of areas needing protection, reportedly has indicated it will not sign it.

As a concession to developing nations, treaty negotiators finally settled on provisions allowing nations to draw up their own lists of habitats needing protection. Such lists do not necessarily reflect conservation priorities for the world at large.

The agreement would not trigger broad new environmental initiatives in the United States. It probably would not require new legislation, nor would it specifically protect such threatened species as the Northern spotted owl. But it could result in more support for projects to conserve wildlife habitat, said the World Wildlife Fund’s Mott.

“This treaty will empower well-intended wildlife agencies . . . to enact creative new programs and get more money,” Mott said. “It is more of an enabling document, rather than something that forces a particular outcome.”

Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, urged nations and environmental groups to view the pact as a starting point that could be strengthened later.

“I think that the process of international environmental law requires us, for better or for worse, to walk before we run and to crawl before we walk,” Tolba said.