May is an important month for biodiversity, marking several international commemorations, including World Bee Day and the International Day for Biological Diversity. As we co-organised and attended a number of events dedicated to these celebrations, we asked ourselves and our partners what it means to be “part of the solution”. As we enter the Decade of Action for Ecosystem Restoration, the world demands bold decisions to step up our shared commitment to biodiversity conservation. 

As the consortium (UNDP, UNEP-WCMC and UNESCO), we continue to do our part and pursue our commitment to support biodiversity action. The National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) support in target countries continues, with the first Colombian NEA soon to be launched. The assessment results aim at driving policy, civic action, and future research on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

In April, Kenya’s First National Trialogue kick-started the action planning process  for the uptake of two IPBES thematic assessments with constructive discussions to explore cross-sectoral collaboration for land degradation neutrality, pollinators protection and food security in Kenya. Another encouraging achievement of the post-Trialogue phase comes from Nigeria, where a webinar dedicated to World Bee Day was organised as part of Nigeria’s Trialogue to Promote Pollinators and BES. This two-day event culminated with a heart-warming art exhibition that celebrated bees’ fundamental role in our lives, as seen by young children.

Our Network continues to grow in the meantime. In May, we welcomed on board African Biodiversity Network (ABN), a natural partner for BES-Net, given our shared focus on food security and ecosystem services in Africa. We are pleased to acknowledge the proactive approach of some of our partners engaging with each other. Tapping into the Network’s expertise is one of the benefits of being part of BES-Net, so we encourage knowledge-sharing and active collaboration towards biodiversity conservation.

Are you part (or aware of) an organisation that might be interested in joining our Network? Please reach out to us at alexandra.postrigan@undp.org, and prashanthi.subramaniam@undp.org!

Photo source: UN CBD

Assessing IPBES’ Impact

This June, participants will meet online for IPBES-8 to review progress with the rolling Programme of Work, focusing on assessing knowledge, but also taking into consideration how these knowledge products are used to generate impact.

Since its establishment nearly a decade ago, IPBES has  generated and released eight global and regional assessments (IPBES 2016a, 2016b, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d, 2018e, 2019) with three more, on values, sustainable use, and invasive alien species (IAS), currently in preparation scheduled to be finalized by IPBES-9 and -10 respectively, and four more, on biodiversity and climate change, business and biodiversity, transformative change, and the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of climate change, also to be released in future plenaries.  This impressive set of reports has definitely had a large impact on the biodiversity science community and has made significant progress with combining different forms of knowledge, both traditional and scientific.

A measure of the breadth of impact of the IPBES knowledge products can be sampled from the innovative Impact tracking tool on the IPBES website. For example, the day after the release of the IPBES global assessment in 2019, the environment ministers of the G7 adopted the Metz Charter on Biodiversity, providing high-level political commitment to halt biodiversity loss and to work towards a strong global deal for nature and people in 2020 at the, now delayed, COP15 to the Convention on Biological Diversity. On the other hand, try to gauge the possible impact of this example from the tracking tool database! Browsing the over 400 entries in the database can provide inspiration for new ways to use IPBES knowledge products to shape biodiversity policy and actions and newsletter readers can perhaps supplement the database with more examples to inform IPBES’s work.

                              
After a long break from most social events during the recent pandemic, Life4Pollinators is now set to start its activities in the coming months. Stay tuned to Life4Pollinator’s social channels, to discover the educational material, such as the pollinators (bees, wasps, butterflies & moths, flies and beetles) and entomophilous plants field guides, that were launched on the World Bee Day and the International Day for Biological Diversity. In June the first BioBlitz-activities will start to take place in Italy in collaboration with the Regione Lombardia and in Spain in the Balearic Islands, to engage the public in pollinator monitoring and conservation. Launching the submission platform, the project will also contribute to making meaningful progress in pollinator conservation across the Mediterranean region.

Stay tuned on www.life4pollinator.eu,Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

April 2021 marked a crucial step for protecting indigenous peoples  rights in the Congolese legislation, as confirmed by the unanimous vote of the DRC National Assembly. This remarkable achievement resulted from the initiative launched by La Dynamique des Groupes des Peuples Autochtones (DGPA), BES-Net partner and Equator Prize winner. DGPA’s advocacy activity to protect the environment and ensure fundamental human rights has borne fruit.

Read more about the work of DGPA here: https://www.besnet.world/permaculture-brings-promise-peace-and-food-security-two-congolese-communities

GloFouling Partnerships project – a joint initiative of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP and International Maritime Organization (IMO), is an intervention at the global, regional and national levels, with the aim to develop best practices and build capacity in participating countries for implementing the IMO and other relevant guidelines for biofouling management. The project is calling boat users and owners to complete a short survey (available in English, Spanish, French and Arabic) to help to learn about current practices and challenges faced by recreational boaters for preventing biofouling. Taking part in this survey will help the co-operating partners to identify better and more economically efficient tools for all boaters to prevent biofouling. The study will include recommendations on the best approaches to tackle biofouling in a cost-effective way for all types of sailing boats, motorboats and yachts.

Follow the link to complete this short survey: https://forms.microsoft.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=OHM9rD1gZ0WZHcirS4nCEyVEMsMXNCpAicqGEWkMmV1URTgxVjBEVk5JVktMUTdXSUhEM0tUQ0dUSS4u

The virtual sessions of the joint fifth Science-Policy Forum for Biodiversity and the eighth International Conference on Sustainability Science took place in April with more than two thousand participants identifying key biodiversity knowledge gaps and priorities for science-policy research, needs for capacity building, and opportunities for increased technical and scientific cooperation. The Science-Policy Forum is a unique opportunity for scientists, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders to conduct open discussions and make recommendations on how science, technology and innovation can contribute to the effective implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, bend the curve of biodiversity loss, obtain positive biodiversity outcomes, and foster transformative change towards achieving the 2050 Vision of Living in Harmony with Nature.

For further details about the joint sessions and their outcomes, including videos of the sessions, please visit: https://science4biodiversity.org/

Recognize the #PowerofWetlands: Open Letter