Conservation Policy: Helping or hindering science to unlock properties of plants and fungi

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2020 The Authors, Plants, People, Planet © New Phytologist Foundation 1Kew Science, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, UK 2Faculty of Law and Criminology, Department of European, Public and International Law, Universiteit Gent, Belgium 3ABS International (ABS-int), Bruges, Belgium 4Fundação Oswaldo Cruz – Fiocruz, VicePresidency of Research and Biological Collections, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 5Center for Environmental Science, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia 6Cape Research Centre, South African National Parks, Cape Town, South Africa 7Southern African Development Community, South Africa 8Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Richmond, UK 9Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre and Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden


Societal Impact Statement
Biodiversity loss is happening at an unprecedented rate. Understanding and protecting biodiversity has never been more urgent, and scientific research is key to this. Fair and transparent access and benefit sharing policies enable research to take place, whilst supporting sustainable livelihoods of communities and ensuring benefits are shared. Current national legislation has been unevenly implemented and, in this article, we recommend frameworks be developed to standardize the provision and use of genetic resources for non-commercial research.

Summary:
• Access to genetic resources for scientific research is vital to support and promote the conservation and sustainable use of the world's biodiversity. The regulatory framework for research is stipulated by Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) legislation at a national level, but other elements -legal transparency, respect, cooperation, and trust -are essential for its effective and sustainable implementation. Despite the intention of this "ABS regime" to protect natural resources and associated knowledge from misappropriation, several studies have questioned whether national regulatory approaches have led to constraints on research and conservation.
• We analyse evidence and provide case studies on how these regulations are affecting research. We find that the number of Internationally Recognized Certificates of Compliance (IRCC) of the Nagoya Protocol (NP), the key compliance mechanism of the ABS system, doubled in the six months prior to February 2020 and analyse why this may be the case.
• Additionally, a survey of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Authorities in 28 countries, found differences in the way the Registered Scientific Institute scheme is interpreted and used to facilitate scientific research.

| BACKG ROU N D
There is an urgent need to halt biodiversity loss (Bongaarts, 2019;Mace et al., 2018). We focus on two key biodiversity conservation conventions: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora (CITES). We examine whether adequate measures are in place to ensure the conventions support and enable the research vital to combatting biodiversity loss.
While Article 15 of the CBD states the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments', this article looks at how different countries have reacted to both the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol (NP) promoting simplified measures for non-commercial research purposes. We focus on non-commercial research aimed at understanding the world around us, which is vital to supporting conservation (Beck, 2019). Our examples concentrate on aspects of plant and fungal research including taxonomy, seed biology, ecological interactions, ecosystem services, the effects of climate change, and genomic studies.

| The Convention on Biological Diversity: establishment, development, and protocols
The CBD (1992, currently 196 Parties) is the overarching United Nations Convention to tackle biodiversity loss, focusing on three objectives: (a) the conservation of biological diversity; (b) the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity; and (c) the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources (GR). The CBD recognizes the sovereign rights of States over their natural resources and their authority to determine access to GR through national legislation (Article 15 (1) CBD) and encourages Parties to develop conditions for facilitated access to GR for environmentally sound uses (Article 15 (2) CBD). A major reason many ratified the Convention (Davis, 2018) was that the CBD mechanism of sharing benefits from GR would act as an incentive for countries to invest in conservation.
However, measures to regulate access to GR (Davis & Borisenko, 2017;Rosendal & Andresen, 2016) have brought criticism that overly complex legislation is hampering scientific research (Alves et al., 2018;Neumann et al., 2018;da Silva & de Oliveira, 2018;Smith, da Silva, Jackson, & Lyal, 2017). Although regulatory access measures are only one of the reasons countries are failing to see expected benefits needed to support national conservation efforts (Dalle, 2015;Vogel, Alvarez-Berrios, Quinones-Vilches, & Medina-Muniz, 2011), they have a major impact. While some countries (like Australia) have included a facilitated access procedure for researchers doing non-commercial research (AUDAWP, 2020)), others have resisted because of concerns over keeping track of how their GR are used.
Ethiopia's introduction of a facilitated access procedure (Negarit, 2006;Negarit-Gazeta, 2009) (Box 1) demonstrated their expectation that this system would increase both commercial and non-commercial benefits, but these have not been realized (Dalle, 2015).
The CBD's Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing (NP), agreed in 2010 and in force since 2014, has provided more clarity on how access legislation should be framed.
The NP introduced a legally binding compliance regime to enforce benefit sharing (da Silva, 2019) and encourages Parties to implement "simplified measures on access for non-commercial research purposes" (Article 8a NP). The aim of this was to facilitate biodiversity research that underpins conservation and sustainable use, and takes into account the need to address a change of intent (commercial/ non-commercial) for such research (Schindel & Du Plessis, 2014).
Parties to the Protocol are also to "encourage" the development and use of codes of conduct, guidelines and best practices or standards in relation to ABS (NP Article 20 (1)), these can be crucial in building trust in non-commercial research. To ensure compliance with national legislation (NP Article 6(3)(e)), parties should issue a permit, as evidence that access to GR was based on prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms. Parties are required to make information • Our results suggest while the regulatory systems are perceived as hindering research and conservation, regulatory mechanisms enabling responsible research are becoming increasingly functional. We argue that functional and transparent systems are needed for both regulators and researchers, to ensure that non-commercial research can continue smoothly, and present conclusions to support research for the benefit of all countries and partners involved, through appropriate frameworks for implementation and reporting.

K E Y W O R D S
biodiversity conservation, CBD, CITES, Nagoya Protocol, non-commercial, taxonomy on the permit available to the ABS Clearing-House (ABSCH) (Article 14 (2)(c)), which constitutes an "Internationally Recognized Certificate of Compliance" (IRCC). The IRCC is a major innovation of the NP and is key to the compliance regime of the ABS system. CITES (1975, currently 183 Parties) establishes regulatory measures for Parties to prevent species decline due to international trade (CITES, 2020). CITES regulates the international trade of over 30,000 plant species, and while the Conference of the Parties agrees that species of fungi are covered by CITES, to-date none have been listed. Permits allowing the trade in CITES listed species can only be issued if CITES Authorities are satisfied that trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the species and the specimens were legally obtained.

| Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
To accommodate research, CITES recognized that an exemption from the general permit system was needed to facilitate research in CITES specimens (Article VII, paragraph 6 of CITES) (CITES, 2020), and the establishment of the Registered Scientific Institute (RSI) scheme (Roberts & Solow, 2008). The promotion and implementation of the RSI scheme in each Party is a responsibility of the individual state, and thus, it may be enacted differently. For instance, in criteria and lengths of validity, or in reporting mechanisms to the CITES Authorities. Despite the exemption, many scientists have expressed that permits can be costly and time consuming to obtain. A long-standing concern has been that the RSI scheme does not work, ultimately impeding the free movement of specimens for scientific purposes (Raven, 2007;Roberts, 2005;Zelenko, 2005).
Below we explore the extent to which these mechanisms (ABS for CBD, and RSI for CITES) have been effective in supporting biodiversity research (Pauchard, 2018), examining claims that international policy frameworks have had a detrimental effect (Wynberg & Laird, 2018).

| ME THODS
We focused on 20 countries where analyses of ABS legislation data were available (Sirakaya, 2019). They were selected based on biodiversity richness, signatory status to the NP, age of ABS framework, economic status and we also aimed to include at least one country per continent. We examined trends from the ABSCH website of the CBD, (https://absch.cbd.int/reports) to analyse access, looking at whether countries had introduced favourable measures on access for non-commercial research purposes ( Figure 1) and whether this had any impact on levels of the collection of plant and fungal material. By the term "favourable" here, we mean any measure (such as quicker time-frames, simpler systems, shorter application forms, less onerous procedures) that makes access quicker or easier for noncommercial researchers. For instance, a country switching from an in-country paper-based system to an electronic system accepting global applications. This phrase includes both measures put in place following the CBD's call for Parties to "create conditions to facilitate access to genetic resources for environmentally sound uses" and later measures in response to the NP to introduce "simplified measures on access for non-commercial research purposes".
Secondly, beyond our focus countries, we gathered the total number of IRCCs that have been issued by Parties (as at February 2020) as an indication of research carried out since the NP came into force (October 2014). All data were downloaded (Figure 2) F I G U R E 1 Differences in access procedures among the countries surveyed. The term "favorable" here means any measure (such as quicker time-frames, simpler systems, shorter application forms, less onerous procedures) that makes access quicker or easier for non-commercial researchers. Due to the select sampling of countries there may be an undue bias depicted in the diagram  (Table 1).
The consultation was carried out in early January 2020, for 4 weeks, and contained 10 open questions. Participants were asked to provide additional information on the use of the RSI scheme and annual reports if available (and applicable as a national requirement). Only completed reports, covering the five years from 2014 to 2019, were analysed.

| Favorable access procedures
Australia was one of the first to introduce a simpler permitting system for non-commercial research, using a standard form to minimize Restricting simplified access procedures in this way suggests that countries remain concerned about how they can track the use of GR once these resources have been exported.
There is evidence that, despite some simplified measures, legal obstacles still exist for non-commercial research scientists (Bockmann et al., 2018). The demarcation between commercial and non-commercial research is unclear, guidance is needed to enable countries to enact adequate measures, ensuring changes of use or intent are tracked and benefits are shared (Pauchard, 2018). Legal certainty and effective user country compliance procedures are all vital (Beck, 2019;Wynberg & Laird, 2018), while limited capacity, lack of legal enforcement and follow-up mechanisms for ABS procedures have also been identified as critical gaps obstructing proper implementation (Dalle, 2015).

| Internationally Recognized Certificates of Compliance (IRCC)
As of 1st February 2020, the ABSCH website had registered more than double the total number of IRCCs registered six months

BOX 1 Case study: Ethiopia
The Ethiopian government enacted ABS Proclamation No.

| Registered scientific institutions (RSIs)
To Many respondents provided confirmation of RSI successes and challenges: • Six countries encourage scientific institutions and scientists to register with the scheme; • Spain has a streamlined application procedure for scientific exchange of materials; • Germany has detailed information and guidance about their RSI scheme on the Scientific Authority homepage, and actively advises scientists; • Austria, Australia, Denmark, and the UK contact scientific institutions about the RSI scheme, and deal with ad-hoc registration requests; • Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Italy stated that the promotion of RSI scheme is inadequate; • Croatia, Ethiopia, Italy, Germany, Greece, Philippines, and Denmark have not encountered difficulties in implementation; • Austria and Croatia criticized the scheme as it does not encourage new research on CITES taxa; • Norway, UK, Spain, and Denmark received between 5% and 10% of the total number of expected annual reports; • The UK noted most institutions do not use the scheme regularly, and some failed to record both incoming and outgoing exchanges; • Eleven consulted Parties did not have recent reports to share or were otherwise not able to share these. The UK shared annual

BOX 3 Case study: South Africa
South Africa has an access permitting system that is similar for both commercial and non-commercial research (Pauchard, 2018). 98% approval rate over eight years. None of these permits has been uploaded to the ABSCH, as non-commercial research is exempted from the ABS regime in South Africa (Pauchard, 2018).   (Davis, 2018) ensuring that they can navigate the developing national legislations, ABS agreements are in place and prior informed consent obtained (Kariyawasam & Tsai, 2018;Wynberg, 2017). Effective implementation of compliance measures, legal transparency, and certainty will be critical to deliver the CBD objectives.

CITES Parties of the European Union with at least one Registered Scientific Institution
IRCCs provide a vital means to track the use of GR, supporting compliance, and identifying any change of use.  (Dhanda, Williams, & Cowell, 2019) and their potential to address sustainable development goals (Antonelli, Smith, & Simmonds, 2020). Further analysis of IRCCs from more countries will provide a better representation of the data and could aid in determining the impacts on conservation critical research.
Ultimately, whilst aimed at correcting centuries of inequitable use of biological resources (Wynberg & Laird, 2018), current ABS policy processes are seen as inflexible (Pisupati & Bavikatte, 2014;Prathapan et al., 2018). There is no clear way to differentiate the point at which non-commercial research becomes commercial (Neumann et al., 2018), and this has made it hard for provider countries to create workable national legislation. Consequently, there have been calls for the current ABS system, based on physical access to material and the bilateral contract model, to be reappraised (Laird et al., 2020).
We had mixed findings on the CITES RSI scheme as an exam- Many respondents answered favorably about the scheme as it eases access to collections, improves exchange times, and reduces administrative burdens. However, the scheme also appears to be a significant hurdle for scientific institutions by only providing exemption to specimens already part of a collection when an institute registers and not to specimens added after registration, thus restricting future research.
A standard set framework such as CITES has for RSIs could lead to the creation of a central database of registered institutions. Such a system would require users to adopt agreed best practices governing collection, curation, and collaboration, to ensure measures are in place to track (and secure approval for) changes of use. There is scope within the NP (Article 20) for Parties to "consider the adoption" of best practice standards and codes of conduct which could be the basis for research institutes to register and adhere to.

| CON CLUS IONS
We have shown that the use of IRCCs is key in the compliance regime of the NP and encourage measures to increase the capacity of Parties to use the ABSCH platform, uploading information and IRCCs. Once more IRCCs are available, we recommend further analysis of the data, to ascertain patterns in commercial and noncommercial research. To support this, the platform can be modified for more functionality to work as a searchable tool. We also hope that Parties are encouraged to re-evaluate the benefits of the CITES RSI scheme, promoting it adequately with scientists and researchers who use scientific specimens for research purposes. We would support the creation of a standard and simplified registration template, addressing compliance measures, such as reporting and new specimen additions to existing collections.
While we hope this article will encourage providers of GR to implement simplified access measures for non-commercial research to support the vital conservation work that is needed, we recognize that to support compliance, researchers need to provide information to aid Parties in differentiating between commercial and non-commercial research. We urge researchers to follow the many established codes of conduct, guidelines, and best practices to build trust and develop strong international partnerships.

ACK N OWLED G M ENTS
The