Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in Livestock Sector: What Have We Learnt So Far?

Simple Summary Adoption of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (Nagoya Protocol) in 2010, and its entering into the force October 2014, created many questions within the genetic resources (GR) sector. The Protocol addresses access to and benefit sharing (ABS) resulting from utilization of GR and associated traditional knowledge (TK). The Protocol has been tailored to address commercial utilization of mainly wild species, and especially plants, due to their gene flow from the biodiverse rich countries of the South to countries in the North. Characteristics of the livestock sector differ in many aspects from the plant sector. Most significantly, the gene flow of livestock genetic resources of breeds and lines with high genetic potential for production is the highest between North-North countries and then North-South countries. Therefore, many working in the livestock breeding industry believed that impacts of the implementation of the Protocol would be limited for their sector. The question arises if this prediction is true, and how can we check impacts based on currently available sources of information related to the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol. The aim of the paper was to analyze impacts of seven years of implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on the livestock sector based on available sources of information and literature. Interim National Reports on implementation of the Nagoya Protocol provided by countries and other information available at the ABS Clearing House managed by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, especially Internationally Recognized Certificates of Compliance (IRCC), were analyzed. Moreover, trends in geneflow of breeding products in selected countries, based on the national reports provided to the UN COMATRADE database, have been compared. Analysis from these sources showed limited impact of the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol for livestock breeding and conservation, as out of 2370 IRCC issued by 31 May 2021, only 573 were granted for animal genetic/biological resources including 90 with livestock as the subject matter. Only one IRCC was granted to a foreign user; all other IRCC were issued for domestic users. The intent was to use livestock genetic/biological resources as bioresources for innovation, which should lead to establishment of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) with benefits to be shared through the National Competent Authority or for research purposes.