The biodiversity convention

This book describes how a rather vague proposal put to the UN Environment Programme in 1987 developed into the 1992 Biodiversity Convention. The author gives a first hand and personal account of heading the UK delegation during the negotiations and subsequently, as a consultant, of taking part in the first tentative steps towards its implementation.

The convention has generated a number of academic treatises and legal analyses: this book offers a unique insight into how it was negotiated, arguments and counterarguments, misunderstandings, compromises, rhetoric, camaraderie and frustration. The "story" takes the reader behind the scenes at international gatherings in London, Nairobi, Geneva, Montreal, New York, Madrid, Nassau and the Rio de Janeiro "Earth Summit".

. It should be of interest to environmental policy makers, conservation groups, lawyers, students of environmental law and of the wider United Nations negotiating process.