Representatives from national governments, regional and international organizations and other key stakeholders from around the world have come together to attend the 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 14) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 17-29 November, in Sham El Sheikh, Egypt. Participants are expected to renew the ambition to achieve global biodiversity targets by 2020 and begin roadmap for negotiations of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

At the backdrop of this important event, the Coalition of the Willing on Pollinators: ‘Promote Pollinators’ organized a Sign-up Event on the 14th of November for new member countries to join and expand the dedicated efforts among the committed members to protect pollinating species threatened with extinction. On the 18th of November, another workshop on the use of data to protect pollinators hosted by prof Koos Biesmeijer was held and older members shared the developments on data for pollinators in their countries.
The Dominican Republic is one of the Promote Pollinators members and was the host of the BES-Net’s recent Caribbean Regional Trialogue on Pollinators, Food Security and Climate Resilience held in September in Santo Domingo. Prof. Jose Rafael Almonte Perdomo, IPBES National Focal Point in the Dominican Republic, attended the sessions and presented how the Trialogue event helped enhance mutual understandings of pollinators’ roles among the communities of science, policy and practice, and strengthened their joint commitments towards the sustainable management and use of local pollinator species. The achievement by the seven participating countries at the Trialogue, who are also IPBES member states in the region, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago, was highly acknowledged and welcomed as the establishment of the ‘Caribbean Coalition of the Willing’.