The biodiversity convention signed at the summit has been ratified by the required 30 countries and is due to come into force at the end of this year.

Mr. Mathur said that the last year or so had finally seen the biodiversity convention "start to come of age."

Still, the United States could have been isolated since it was not a party to the biodiversity convention.

The United States received heavy international criticism over that decision and for its refusal to sign the new biodiversity convention to preserve animal and plant life, an agreement which won the European Community's support today.

The Philippines in 1995 became the first country to enact a law in response to the biodiversity convention.

The Washington-based company was started in response to the biodiversity convention and formed a joint venture with a local citizen so that some profits would go back to Colombia.

And the reality is that we have no biodiversity convention, no biosafety protocol and no climate protocol.

I hope that the forest strategy on which the Commission is working so hard now will give us the opportunity to establish protected areas to meet our commitments under the biodiversity convention.

Thirdly, in paragraph 43 there is a request for some principles under the biodiversity convention to take precedence over other international agreements concluded by the Community, for example under the World Trade Organization regime.

Twenty-six years prior to the international biodiversity convention, the United States had launched a national program to protect threatened species in the form of the 1966 Endangered Species Act.