AlJazeeraEnglish | October 30, 2010 - Participants from nearly 200 countries have hammered out an agreement in the closing hours of the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Japan.
The treaty is significant in terms of a consensus among participating nations on how best to share and manage the benefits derived from the world's genetic resources.
Details remain scarce but the accord may include a fund for developing nations, to compensate them for the cost of protecting their biological diversity.
Al Jazeera's Florence Looi reports.