• Acknowledgements
• About the Authors
• Introduction
• Dimensions of Diversity
• Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and the Convention on Biodiversity
• From Policy to Implementation?
• Executive Summary of COP5 Decisions
• Executive Summary of COP6 DecisionsReferences

Relations with other International Conventions and Agreements:

The Convention on Biological Diversity is increasingly establishing collaborative work programmes and collaborative arrangements with related Conventions and agreements (i.e. the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands). While precise procedures for the establishment of mechanisms for collaboration are difficult to identify, they appear to involve combinations of the following steps and activities:

• Application for observer status on the part of the Secretariat under the related process.
• Communications between respective Secretariats
• The development of Memoranda of Cooperation between the Secretariats
• Joint Bureau meetings (composed of selected governments)
• The creation of Liaison Groups between related Conventions and agreements
• The realisation of joint expert groups
• The realisation of joint workshops
• The formulation of joint programmes of work

To give brief examples, in the case of the CBD and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, following the establishment of a Memoranda of Cooperation, COP3 recommended the creation of a joint work programme which is now led by the Ramsar Convention. More recently in the case of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change SBSTTA6 recommended the establishment of a liaison group which has led to the creation of an expert group. In the case of the CBD and the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), this has taken the form of the realisation of a joint workshop. In the case of the CBD and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, an Inter-Agency Support Group for the Permanent Forum (including the Secretariat of the CBD and related environmental Conventions and agreements) has apparently been proposed.

The establishment of these collaborative arrangements represents an important trend in efforts on the part of the CBD to harmonise its work with related Conventions and agreements which present important opportunities and challenges for indigenous peoples and local communities . [1]