ABSTRACT
Political agreement on the need to conserve biological diversity was achieved at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, which resulted in the creation of the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP) and the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration 1972 (Chapter 1, p 61, above). This consensus formed the foundation for the development of a number of international instruments (including the Bonn and Berne Conventions) laying down certain general conservation objectives and sometimes very specific conservation rules. The adoption of these instruments implicitly accepts that the principle of national sovereignty is not absolute and is tempered by recognition of the international community’s common concern with the conservation of natural resources, even those within the jurisdiction and control of a State (de Klemm (1993) 4).
