NEWS AND LINKS: OCTOBER 28, 2010

From Ornamental Fish International:

CBD CONFERENCE IN JAPAN: Currently the 10th Conference of the parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity is taking place in Nagoya, Japan. OFI is represented at this conference, which is comparable with the CITES conference, by our colleague from OATA (Ornamental Aquatics TRade Association – UK) Keith Davenport. Hot topics for us at this conference are Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) and Invasive Alien Species (IAS). The first topic is about whether commercial users of animals and plants (breeders, traders) will have to pay the country from where the species originates. For instance Discus from Brazil, even though this species is captive bred all over the world. Should breeders in Malaysia, Taiwan or Germany pay a license fee to Brazil? The OFI position is that that they  want to avoid this for pets in general and ornamental fish in particular.