Dr. Venecia Alvarez, a participant in the BES-Net’s Caribbean Regional Trialogue, recently contributed an article to the Verdor Magazine – the magazine of the Dominican Academy of Sciences in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Alvarez is a member of the Commission of Natural Sciences and Environment of the Dominican Academy of Sciences and a member of the panel of experts of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for the Caribbean and Latin American region. Her article titled “IPBES’s role in the Dominican Republic” sheds light on the BES-Net Trialogue, which was held on 4-6 September 2018 in Santo Domingo, and the post-Trialogue actions having taken to date in the Dominican Republic.
Inter alia, the author analyzes the relevance and importance of the United Nations’ collaboration to promote the uptake of the IPBES assessment findings and messages in the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, through the lenses of the first IPBES Global thematic Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production. The author highlights how the Trialogue brought together the seven island countries of the Caribbean Region and facilitated the multisectoral dialogues of political, scientific and practice communities around the themes of protecting the pollinators with the improved understanding of their roles in food security and the resilience to climate change in the region. Some of the keys agreed on follow-up action points by the participants include:
safeguard pollinators;
- guarantee a greater diversity of habitats;
- promote sustainable agriculture;
- support of traditional practices such as:
management of the habitat patch and the rotation of crops
- broader education and knowledge exchange;
- decreased exposure of pollinators to pesticides;
- improve the breeding of bees.
Dr. Alvarez states in the same article that “As a result of the second Regional Trialogue, the participants agreed on the development and implementation of a Regional Action Plan, which includes national and local actions for each country.
As she further emphasizes “The Dominican Republic, through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, committed to comply with the priority actions, identified and included in said Action Plan. With this activity, IPBES made a valuable contribution, to the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as food production, to the benefit of the well-being of all the Dominicans.
From the current edition of this Verdor Magazine, the Academy of Sciences of the Dominican Republic will monitor compliance with commitments assumed by the Dominican State, through the Plan of Action 2018-2030.
In this way, this scientific entity intends to do their contribution from an academic point of view to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use for pollinators, their importance in biodiversity, in the production of food and therefore in the reduction of poverty”, stated Dr. Alvarez.
For more information about IPBES in the Dominican Republic, please read the original article in Spanish here.
