36 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM reserve capacity for that. In addition, I think they should be prepared for a slowdown of PGR exchanges. TVDB: I would like to advise other companies to ensure that they have their procedures in order. XB: We cannot pretend giving advice to other companies. Each company has to decide about its most effective approach of the ABS legislation, depending of its internal specificities. ANKE VAN DEN HURK (AVDH): As dossier holder in Plantum, the association for seeds and young plants, we assist mem- bers in obtaining the right information on ABS obligations. We developed the first draft of recommendations for the members. These are taken over by the European Seed Association for fur- ther fine-tuning and will be finalized once the official guidance documents of the EU are finalized. Furthermore we keep the members informed on the developments through our newsletter and information meetings. In addition, we have once a month a telephone consultation hour. ES: OVERALL, DO YOU THINK THERE IS A BENEFIT TO ALL THESE REGULATIONS? OR IS IT JUST A BURDEN? TVDB: Ensuring compliance with the Access and Benefit Sharing obligations ensuing from the Convention on Biological Diversity has proven to be quite a burden to the users of genetic resources. We believe that it will lead to a point where the users of genetic resources will avoid the use of genetic resources which are sub- ject to ABS measures which in turn causes a lower availability of genetic variation. In order to assure conservation and sustaina- ble use of biodiversity, we are of the opinion that the countries that are party to the CBD should not link the benefit sharing obligations to the use of individual genetic resources, because this creates a burdensome and inefficient system. Instead, we envision a system whereby users of genetic resources will con- tribute benefit sharing in a predictable and uniform way, without the need for negotiations and tracking and tracing of the use of individual genetic resources. This could be organized for exam- ple through a fixed fee and no administration. LB: There is so much focus on all kinds of administrative for- malities that people seem to be losing sight of what it is actually all about. The main aim is conserving biodiversity and the sus- tainable use thereof. I wonder how this can be accomplished, when breeders are reluctant to access new genetic resources because of the high administrative burden or uncertainty about the applicable rules. MB: As long as Europe focusses on the benefit-sharing obliga- tions with its regulations only and the potential countries of origin are not regulating their access obligations, it will be an unbalanced situation. A situation in which the goal to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity will not be reached and with that no long term benefit for the society will arise. XB: In my view, we have now to bear with the ABS applicable regulations. The only remark we can make for the national imple- mentations of the NP, can best be captured up by a French popu- lar expression: the legislator “a mis la charrue avant les boeufs”. [‘putting the cart before the horse’; RED]. It means that the implementation of the ABS obligations at national level would, in most cases, need more time to enter into force in a practical workable form. ES: HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE, LET’S SAY IN 20 YEARS FROM NOW? WHAT WILL HAVE CHANGED BECAUSE OF THESE REGULATIONS? TVDB: We expect that the countries which are a party to the CBD will be disappointed by the amount of benefit sharing actually collected from the users of genetic resources and we expect that therefore the respective countries will be working on the suc- cessive legislation to replace or supplement the Nagoya Protocol. In addition, we expect that the speed of innovation in the plant breeding sector will reduce for a while due to the hampered access to genetic resources, but that thereafter the speed of innovation will most likely be compensated by development of new breeding techniques. XB: Not so easy to see the future developments of the NP. In any case, some clarity will be needed. To be confident into the future of our plant breeding, we need mechanisms where the access to the GR will be simple, fast and profitable for both the suppliers and users. MB: In the future we expect a higher administrative burden will be placed on obtaining new Genetic Resources. This could have negative effects on innovation and cooperation. This might also negatively affect the goal to preserve and sustainably use biodiversity as a global effort. TVDB: We expect that global research cooperation’s might suffer for a while, until the parties to the CBD realize the cause and have made alternative and better benefit sharing tools. An exam- ple of such a cooperation is ISHI-Veg, the International Seed Health Initiative for Vegetable Crops (http://www.worldseed.org/ our-work/phytosanitary-matters/seed-health/ishi-veg/). Here the seed industry cooperates to develop methods for detection of infected seeds in commercial seed lots, thus reducing the risk of global spread of seed-borne diseases. Currently the exchange of samples of pathogens, and even the contribution of knowledge to this network is in some countries hindered by the domestic ABS-regulations.