Science - Policy - Practice Discussion: 

Insights from David Duthie (BES-Net Senior Knowledge Management Advisor)

Another form of MADness

The acronym MAD is usually associated with the “mutually assured destruction” of the escalating nuclear weapons arms race of the Cold War, but something equally MAD is going on in the world of biodiversity, especially on island ecosystems such as the Caribbean. The recent IPBES regional biodiversity assessments have painted a generally grim picture of the state of biodiversity.  Similarly, last year’s IPBES pollinator assessment highlighted the potential economic losses from the decline in, predominately, insect pollinators.

 

So the MAD I want to highlight here is our plant “Mutualists Are Declining”.  This is particularly apparent in the Caribbean, the location of the next BES-NET regional Trialogue, which will focus on pollinators. Because of a relative absence of insect pollinators on island ecosystem, a wider range of vertebrate pollinators (birds, bats, rodents) have evolved ecological adaptations to occupy the “nectar niche” – there are even specialist reptile pollinators in some island ecosystems. But vertebrate biodiversity is under increased threat compared with invertebrates and recent studies, including the IPBES pollinator assessment, have highlighted the loss of plant mutualists, both as pollinators and seed dispersers, which is creating plant “widows”, species that have lost a vital ecological partner and are effectively, in ecological and evolutionary terms, the living dead, or at best, the walking wounded.

 

A 2013 study found that, on islands, up to 30% of vertebrate pollinators are threatened with extinction, potentially creating over 360 plant widows.  Hopefully, the forthcoming Caribbean BES-Net pollinator Trialogue will be a positive step towards stopping this MADness. 

Highlights from BES-NET Partners

IPBES Brochure for Scientists, Policy Makers and Practitioners by ValuES

ValuES, in cooperation with the Network-Forum for Biodiversity Research Germany (NeFo), published a brochure, entitled “The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): A brief introduction for scientists, policymakers, and practitioners”. The brochure provides interested parties with a quick and informative overview of IPBES and the different topics and processes addressed by the Platform. The document is available in English, French, German and Spanish.

3rd Global BIOFIN Conference by Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN)

In early March, around 250 government, civil society and private sector experts came together for the third global conference on biodiversity finance organised by BIOFIN in Chennai, India. Ministers and senior delegates from over 35 countries shared and debated strategies for investing in nature-based solutions and highlighted challenges and opportunities for advancing many of the biodiversity finance options available to countries – detailed in the recently launched BIOFIN Finance Solutions Catalogue. Read the full story, see video highlights and all the sessions and pictures from the conference.

270 Belgian scientists call to safeguard biodiversity by Belgian Biodiversity Platform

On 26 March 2018, an Open Letter calling the Belgian government to safeguard biodiversity was signed by 270 Belgian scientists. This Open Letter came in support of the release of IPBES’s four regional assessments on biodiversity. The campaign for this Open Letter was launched on the initiative of Dr Brendan Coolsaet, Assistant Professor in environment and development at ESPOL and Senior Research Associate at the School of International Development (University of East Anglia, UK). Read more >

Finding solutions without reinventing the wheel  by Blue Solutions

In March, the Blue Solutions initiative held a workshop where the creators of the South African ABALOBI app suite presented their blue solution to the fisheries sector in Uganda at Lake Victoria to consider its implementation. ABALOBI enables reliable catch data collection, sound monitoring, transparency and traceability of small-scale fisheries data, and empowers fishers to take an active part in fisheries governance, management and the market. Read more >

Open Regional Fund South-East Europe Biodiversity project by GIZ

Since the joint event in Sarajevo October 2017, the regional ORF BD project in South-East Europe has been working on advancing the implementation of the regional recommendations of the Trialogue through a number of measures:

• the establishment of the regional Biodiversity Task Force of the Regional Cooperation Council with IUCN as the Secretariat
• two pilot case studies supported to identify, assess and evaluate a range of ecosystem services including for agricultural production and nature conservation aiming to improve planning and decision-making basis for sustainable investments.

Upcoming Events

 Public Policies in the Context of Global Changes: Climate Change, Biodiversity and Food Sustainability

Paris, France, May 31st –June 1st, 2018

 

EKLIPSE at the 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology - Call for Capacity Building Course

Jyväskylä, Finland, 11th June 2018

 

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