Introduction: Where did the Nagoya Protocol come from?

At the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia in October 2024 new decisions were reached on how benefits can and should be shared from digital sequence information (DSI). The COP16 DSI Decision 16/2 operationalizes a new benefit-sharing mechanism under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and creates new financial obligations for commercial users of DSI through a sector-based multilateral mechanism called the Cali Fund. The decision also ensures that non-commercial users of DSI can continue to publish in and use sequences in open access databases although DSI databases have new requirements imposed on them. This benefit-sharing approach differs from the bilateral approached under the CBD's Nagoya Protocol. The talk will explain what the DSI decision means for “real-world” scientists, database managers, and users of sequence data. And, in parallel, show what science policy work entails and what is happening on the ground during UN negotiations.