At its first meeting in December 2000, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety recommended the development of a pilot phase of a Biosafety Clearing-House (BCH). This was launched in April 2001. Version 2.0 of the pilot phase of the BCH has now been launched (1 February 2003). New developments include, inter alia, improved search facilities and faster download times, expansion of the capacity-building databases, additional help functions and access to more databases. See http://bch.biodiv.org or contact [email protected] for more information.

04/03/2003