From CBD COP1 to CBD COP17: Reflections on three decades of negotiations with Ambassador Ian Fry

Fiji, Oct. 27 -- -We've heard from the next generation of Pacific Islands negotiators at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Now, we turn to a negotiator with a rich history grounded in the CBD negotiations.

From attending the first four Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) between 1994 and 1998 to participating in the 17th CBD COP this month, Ambassador Ian Fry is a familiar presence in the corridors of multilateral environmental negotiations.

Yet his role in the CBD COP began before then, while working for EcoFund, a small Non-Governmental Organisation in Australia that proposed a biodiversity convention submitting it to the IUCN General Assembly i...