Dear BES-Net Partners and Members                             

As we look ahead to the next year, with CBD COP15 and UNCCD COP15, one of the many messages that resonated among all was: we need to invest in and boost local nature-based solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation. Historically, nature has held all the solutions we need. But amplifying these solutions will require concerted effort, collaboration and timely investments. Indigenous peoples and local communities have often been first-hand champions of some of these solutions.

BES-Net has begun working to implement tangible and scalable biodiversity solutions with the BES Solution Fund. The Fund will run up to 2028, and a total of 18 countries will benefit from the initiative, receiving about US$ 350,000 each. The first phase of the Fund targets seven beneficiary countries, including Kazakhstan, Kenya, Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago, who participated in BES-Net’s Regional Trialogues in 2018 and 2019. The funds will go towards ongoing efforts to conserve pollinators and rehabilitate degraded land, building on the latest evidence generated through the IPBES assessments, as well as to strengthen collaboration among BES-focused policymakers, scientists and practitioners. In the coming months, three more countries – namely Colombia, Cameroon and Viet Nam, who have already completed or are in the process of finalizing their national ecosystem assessments – will also receive the BES Solution Fund.

Working in any of these countries and keen to join BES-Net’s coalition of partners? Please reach out to alexandra.postrigan@undp.org and prashanthi.subramaniam@undp.org! 

Interested in learning more about our BES-Net partners? Take a look at our new Partner of the Month series and don’t hesitate to contact us for more information or for being connected with BES-Net partners.

With that, we wish you all a healthy and peaceful end to the year and an even more fulfilling and purpose-filled 2022!

            

I have never visited Amazonia but, last week, I got up close with the rainforest and its indigenous communities via the photo exhibition “Amazônia”, which is currently on show until March 2022 at the Science Museum in London (see a short video on the threats to the Amazon forest here).

For almost seven years, a renowned Brazilian photographer, Sebastião Salgado, worked with twelve different indigenous communities to create this vision (and record) of the Amazon, when the forest is approaching a crucial tipping point through deforestation and land use change.

Amazônia is part of an international tour that kicked off at the Philharmonie in Paris and goes across the United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil. You can view some of the photos and listen to an impassioned plea from Sebastião for better respect for the indigenous communities of the Amazon and the role that they play in maintaining biodiversity here; you can also join a video tour of the ongoing parallel exhibition at the National Museum of 21st Century Arts (MAXXI) here. Amazônia will also open at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, England, in 2022.

The photos, all black and white, are available as a 528-page coffee table book – so long as you have a strong coffee table, as it weighs in at over 4kg! These photos touch an emotional core that hit home hard – what a tragedy it will be for all if the Amazon is allowed to tip.

These views of the Amazon’s original inhabitants presented by Salgado illustrate the critical role that the Amazon forests play and contrast with and reveal the urgent need to follow through on the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. Signed by more than 130 countries at COP26, the declaration captures the pledge to “work collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030” and the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Statement.

                                                                      
Earlier this month, UNEP-WCMC’s NEA Initiative, in collaboration with the Sub-Global Assessment Network, launched a guidance document on “‘National Ecosystem Assessments to support implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)”’. The guide, developed in collaboration with the CBD and with the support of the Japan Biodiversity Fund, highlights how national ecosystem assessments can help in biodiversity planning, national reporting, technical and scientific cooperation, education and awareness and capacity development, both among national biodiversity focal points and wider stakeholders. To launch the guidance, an online webinar was hosted by the Sub-Global Assessment Network on 23 November, bringing together CBD and IPBES national focal points, researchers and practitioners. 

To read the guidance document, please visit: https://www.ecosystemassessments.net/resource/cbd_nea_implementation/

                                                                      
LIFE 4 Pollinators recently launched a ”Citizen Science” handbook, which incorporates the activity manual for schools called “Students 4 Pollinators”, with field recording worksheets to involve students – and also everybody else – willing to contribute to monitoring wild pollinators and entomophilous plants. The handbook provides practical pollinator-friendly suggestions that everyone can adopt. Be aware, take care and do your part to help with wild pollinators!

For more information and to download the English version, please visit: https://www.life4pollinators.eu/en/downloads

Latest research from South Africa studies threats to African wild dogs and the undiscovered diversity of “Majeje” termites

To read the study “Molecular confirmation of high prevalence of species of Hepatozoon infection in free-ranging African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in the Kruger National Park, South Africa” in detail, please click here.
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If biodiversity is one of the pillars of sustainability of the African continent and key to the survival of its population, then “Majeje” are a crucial brick without which the design would be very unstable. Majeje (or macrotermes) are fungus-growing termites known as ecosystem engineers for their role in cellulose recycling and soil conditioning. Macrotermes termites are also important as edible insects and are widely consumed throughout Africa. Accurate identification of these species is challenging because of few and unreliable morphological differences among taxonomic groups. A recent study in Limpopo, South Africa, has shown that the diversity of this group has been underestimated as vast areas of the African continent have not been surveyed using DNA-based methods. To read more, click here.

These two researches was funded through research grants, managed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) together with the National Research Foundation and provided by the Department of Science and Innovation under its Global Change Programme.

                                       

The European Commission and the Belgian Biodiversity Platform are happy to invite you to their online event “New Policies, New Practices”, launching the new EU Biodiversity governance. This virtual event will be held on 15 December 2021, 10:00 – 12:00 CET. Come explore the new landscape and opportunities of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. A series of high-level talks will allow you to find out more about the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the strengthening of the knowledge base for policy and decision-making through new monitoring and review mechanisms and related opportunities (research funding, science-based policy support, implementation, monitoring, governance).

For more information and the programme, please visit: https://www.biodiversity.be/5607/

                              

UNEP-WCMC, IIED, IUCN and GIZ recently launched the EbA Tools Navigator as part of the project, “Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation: strengthening the evidence and informing policy”, which is part of IKI. The EbA Tools Navigator is maintained by UNEP-WCMC and is hosted by Friends of EbA. There are two main features to the Navigator: 1) a searchable database that guides users through more than 200 tools that can support their work and expand EbA and 2) a space for users to contribute with their own tools or tool experiences. 

To read more, please visit: https://www.unep-wcmc.org/news/new-platform-for-navigating-ecosystem-based-adaptation-tools-launched
To explore the Navigator, please visit: https://toolsnavigator.friendsofeba.com/

During the Gender Day at the recently concluded COP26, Ernestine Leikeki Sevidzem, founding member of Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch (CAMGEW), delivered a powerful message on the interlinkages of climate emergency and gender inequality, highlighting the critical role of forest and rural women from the Global South as knowledge holders and actors of change to be recognised at all levels. 

‘’Rural women are at the forefront of climate action. They plough the soil and take care of the farmland and the natural resources. Yet their voices are not recognised when it comes to policymaking processes, including the nationally determined contributions all over the world,’’ stated Ernestine. As 2019 Equator Prize Winner, Sevidzem was invited to Nature’s Newsroom. Her participation in COP 26 was made possible thanks to the support of Women Engage for a Common Future International.

To see the full interview, follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1059686151465733&ref=sharing&_rdc=2&_rdr

DGPA launches a call to secure indigenous peoples’ rights to land and resources at COP26

Patrick Saidi Hemedi, National Coordinator of BES-Net’s partner Dynamique des Groupes des Peuples Autochtones (DGPA), a network of community-based organizations supporting indigenous peoples in protecting the Congo Basin rainforest, highlighted the critical role of indigenous peoples as protectors of biodiversity. His speech at COP26 followed the announcement of an international pledge of one billion euros in funding for the Congo Basin forest, the second-largest rainforest in the world.

While leveraging the committed funds to protect, restore and sustainably manage forests, it is also vital to engage with local communities and indigenous knowledge holders to ensure that the voices of custodians of biodiversity are heard and their rights protected. 

Patrick’s participation in COP26 was covered by some local media agencies in French, including https://environews-rdc.org/article/climat/618189f0ca81d60004beb77f 

Webinar: Moving to accelerate investments in the blue economy
25 November 2021

The UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Action for SDGs recently organized a webinar as part of its ongoing series on the theme “Moving to accelerate investments for the blue economy”. The blue economy – and what sustainable blue economy interventions look like – is still very new to many of us. The issue is how to navigate from sustainable blue economy strategies to actual action-oriented financing, sovereign as well private financing for priority investments areas. This approach should include small and medium-sized enterprises, which form the mainstay of blue economies in developing countries. 

The event was kickstarted by Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, who serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Oceans and is a founding co-chair of the Friends of Ocean Action, and a supporting member of the High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy. For more information and to check out the other webinars in the series, please visit https://pea4sdgs.org/knowledge/latest-news/2021-webinar-series-62021-moving-to-accelerate-investments-in-the-blue-economy

Webinar: Launch of the new platform for the Biosafety-Clearing-House
29 November- 7 December 2021