The 3rd meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP 3) took place on 13-17 March 2006 in Curitiba, Brazil. The meeting considered and adopted decisions on a wide range of substantive issues, including detailed requirements for documentation accompanying living modified organisms (LMOs) intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing; handling, transport, packaging and identification; the need for and modalities of developing standards with regard to identification, handling, packaging and transport practices for transboundary movements of LMOs; risk assessment and risk management; the need to establish subsidiary bodies under the Protocol; other issues necessary for the effective implementation of the Protocol (rights and/or obligations of Parties of transit); monitoring and reporting; review and assessment of the Protocol; compliance with the Provisions of the Protocol; liability and redress; cooperation with other organizations, conventions and initiatives; operation and activities of the Biosafety Clearing-House; and capacity-building, including adoption of an updated version of the Action Plan for Building Capacities for the Effective Implementation of the Protocol. See http://www.biodiv.org/meetings/cop8mop3/mop-03.shtml for links to the 20 official documents (available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and 13 information documents (most in English only) prepared for the meeting and to daily reports and press coverage of the meeting. Contact [email protected] for any further information.

03/04/2006