VANISHING SPECIES: WHERE DO AMERICAN INTERESTS COME INTO PLAY

Everyone was for the Biodiversity Treaty but us. Obviously, we must be dead-wrong and Bush must be an environmental pariah. But now the New York Times says he's right. What gives?

First, what's the Biodiversity Treaty about? The world's ten million species of birds, animals, marine life, plants, and insects are disappearing at an alarming rate. The treaty seeks to stem this tide of destruction. Signatory nations would set up habitats and promote the preservation of ecosystems and species. The basic purpose of the pact is conceptually sound.

Despite the resolution of hundreds of points of contention during two years of negotiations, three key points were not resolved.

* Who pays for what and how? The poor nations wanted a mandatory payment that each recipient nation could spend as it sees fit. The U.S. wanted to make such contributions as Congress might decide to appropriate and to have the money channeled through international auspices.

* Intellectual property rights. The United States has spent as much as $25 billion of public and private dollars in developing biotechnology. New processes will be created to grow better tomatoes and bigger ears of corn. Biotechnology seeks to boast farm productivity with disease-resistant plants; to prolong shelf-life; to make meat less fatty. In Madison Avenue terms, biotechnology would produce "wonder crops."

The poor nations want this technology handed to them free of charge. There may be patents on electronics but there can be no patents on plants, they contend.

It wasn't just a rich-poor issue; it's a rich-rich issue as well. Through blatant rank protectionism, France keeps 11% of its population on its farms (the U.S. figure is under 2%). If biotechnology makes us even more efficient, the world food supply would increase and the French agricultural dilemma would be compounded.

* International regulation of biotechnology. The world community does not claim that biotech food is unsafe. Some nations just think it would be "safer than safe" to regulate it.

The United States had already gone beyond the point of no return on this issue. The Food and Drug Administration recently ruled that biotechnology was "just another plant-breeding technique" and needed no special labyrinth regulation. It would be foolish for the U.S. to say regulation was not called for at home, but was essential in world commerce.

Conventional wisdom on the road to Rio was that the United States would not "stand tough" on those three points. Conventional wisdom was wrong.

The issues were and remained of compelling importance to President Bush. The new York Times supported the Administration position because "the treaty contained clauses that could erode important American interests going far beyond saving endangered species."

All that's history. Where do we go from here?