Welcome to the BES-Net Newsroom! Here you will find press releases and other articles, newsletters, videos and more. Browse through these resources to stay up to date on the latest news and activities of BES-Net and its community.
Latest Highlights/News
The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) invites you to submit good practices and success stories on pollinators, pollination and food security. Your stories will be reviewed and, once approved, shared on the BES-Net portal in a Good Practice Repository to become available in early 2018. In addition, select submissions may be included in upcoming BES-Net newsletters and in the BES-Net Pollinator Trialogue event-related documents to be released in early 2018. The authors will be mentioned as contributors in the publication.
Please choose one or more following response options (solutions) to frame and write the story on your good practice:
Pesticides and their threat to pollination
Examples of solutions include: Raise standards of risk assessment and regulations of pesticide use. Reduce usage, seek alternative forms for pest control (IPM), train farmers and land users in good practices. Adopt technologies to reduce spray drift and dust emission.
Land use change and its harm to pollination
Examples of solutions include: provide food and nesting resources for pollinators; manage or restore habitat patches; establish protected areas, increase habitat heterogeneity favoring diverse gardens and landscape.
Intensive agricultural management and the danger to pollination
Examples of solutions include: create patches of flower rich habitats, support organic farming, and strengthen existing diversified farming systems, rewards farmers for good practices.
Genetically modified (GM) crops and their threat to pollination
Examples of solutions include: raise standards of risk assessment for approval of GM crops and quantify the indirect and sub lethal effects of GM crops on pollinators
Pathogens, pests and their threat to pollination
Examples of solutions include: improve management of bee husbandry, better disease detection and treatment, breeding programmes for disease resistance, improve regulations for trade and mass breeding (nationally and internationally).
Climate change and its relation to pollination
Examples of solutions include: targeted habitat creation or restoration to manage refuges and connectivity and increase crop diversity (many of these are largely untested).
Invasive alien species and the danger to pollination
Examples of solutions include: policies and practices to prevent new invasions. Eradication after invasion is rarely successful and very costly.
Eligibility:
All individuals, communities and organizations are eligible and invited to this opportunity to submit their good practices.
Language:
The good practices can be submitted in English, Spanish and French.
Submission Guidelines:
In order to submit your proposal, we invite you to please review these details on submission and use the Good Practice template available here. All submissions should be sent to Marta Panco at marta.panco@undp.org as word documents using the template provided.
Date: 11 December 2017
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15 local and indigenous communities from Africa, Asia, and Latin America have been announced as the winners of the Equator Prize 2017. The winning organizations showcase innovative solutions for tackling poverty, environment, and climate challenges, and they will be honored at a celebratory gala in New York on September 17, 2017.
This year's winners show that investments in nature are an effective and efficient pathway to sustainable development, and they also demonstrate that partnerships are crucial to success – at the international, national, and local levels. If we want to achieve the SDGs, we need to think holistically and combine multiple development benefits. Equator Prize winners do just that in their communities. In Achim Steiner’s words, “Their dedication and commitment shows what is possible when communities come together to protect and sustainably manage nature for the benefit of all.”
Please read more in the official announcement here and access the blog post reflecting on lessons learnt from the Equator Initiative’s selection process.
More information about this year's Equator Prize winners is available on the website of the Equator Initiative.
Date: 06 July 2017
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The International Day for Biodiversity is celebrated on May 22 each year. This year's theme, Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism, centers around the important intersection of biologically diverse ecosystems and sustainable tourism.
In an effort to celebrate, support and educate, Wiley has put together a special collection of articles about biodiversity and tourism. These articles are free to read and download until June 30th. We hope you find these both interesting and informative. You can access the database here: http://bit.ly/2q2Aj81.
We invite you to share this collection with all who might enjoy!
Date: 22 May 2017
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Biodiversity provides the essential foundations for our very existence, livelihoods, and prosperity. It provides us with clean water, air, soil, food, medicine, and resources for jobs and growth. It underpins global tourism – one of the world’s fastest growing industries with tremendous potential for contributing to sustainable, inclusive, and equitable development. Biodiversity enriches our lives and culture with its many surprises and breathtaking wildlife, instilling in us a sense of wonder, excitement, peace and happiness. We, of course, are a part of biodiversity, too, sharing this finite and astonishingly beautiful planet with all other species, great and small.
Poetry, like literature, philosophy, music, design and all the creative arts, is often inspired by nature - landscapes, wildlife, and the natural world we live in. Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry that also takes nature as its focus. It is based on a system of three lines and a set syllable pattern. The first and last lines of a haiku have five syllables and the middle line has seven syllables. This 5-7-5 pattern provides a simple structure around which moving images can be woven together to reflect a common respect, admiration and love for all living things on our shared planet. This simplicity of haiku helps convey the profound beauty of the world around us.
UNDP, in cooperation with GEF and CBD have prepared a collection of haikus to help celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22, 2017, and this year’s theme of Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism. Download Inspired by nature: Celebrating biodiversity with Haikus here: http://bit.ly/2qJMZQf.
Here is a sample, written by Naoko Ishii, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Environment Facility:
Once in a lifetime
Let nature inspire us all
We’ll rise up and act
Date: 22 May 2017
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Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) is hiring a Consultant to support the development/refining of the BES-Net Trialogue methodology and support its implementation.
Closely aligned with the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) areas of work and capacity building needs, the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) a capacity sharing ‘network of networks’ that promotes dialogue between science, policy and practice for more effective management of biodiversity and ecosystems, contributing to long-term human well-being and sustainable development.
As a signature product of UNDP’s work in biodiversity and ecosystems, BES-Net harnesses its capacity building expertise at country-level, capitalizes on the accumulated knowledge of best practices and challenges in the field, and brings practitioners into the science-policy arena.
BES-Net is supported by face-to-face capacity building activities (the BES-Net “Trialogues”), a matchmaking facility, and a cutting-edge web portal, all components being mutually reinforcing.
The BES-Net Trialogues Facilitator will be responsible for:
Refining/developing the methodology for the BES-Net Trialogues;
Reviewing, enriching and updating the global desk study and its analysis report using other global best practices and methodologies
Facilitating the development and framing of standard agendas and methodologies for the different (proposed) formats of the BES-Net Trialogues;
Finalizing the BES-Net Facilitators Check List and Toolkit;
Developing a Trialogue briefing pack for local facilitators and speakers;
Supporting the organization, facilitation and management of the BES- Net Trialogues;
Recommending the methodology of evaluating and monitoring the Trialogues and their capacity building impact;
Developing a global roaster of Trialogue Facilitators.
Interested and qualified International Individual consultants should submit their applications before the 13th October 2016, which should include the following
Personal History Form (P11) - Template Provided (see link below);
Detailed Curriculum Vitae;
IC Proposal form - Template Provided (see link below).
http://www.ke.undp.org/content/kenya/en/home/operations/procurement/_-lta-international-individual-consultant--bes-net-trialogues-fa.html
Date: 10 October 2016
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We are pleased to announce the soft launch of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) web portal. BES-Net is a capacity sharing “network of networks” that promotes dialogue among science, policy and practice for more effective management of biodiversity and ecosystems, contributing to long-term human well-being and sustainable development.
The BES-Net web portal provides a “one-stop shop” for policy relevant information and learning material on different themes and methodologies, such as land degradation and restoration, pollinators pollination and food production, and more. Over the last 6 months, we have been piloting the BES-Net web portal internally within UNDP, while IPBES-related content is being finalized in collaboration with IPBES.
Our global capacity sharing network presently counts 75 organizations playing a key role in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as 70 international experts, who have agreed to respond and interact with users on issues regarding biodiversity and ecosystem services and poverty eradication in their individual capacities.
We invite you to register as a user of the web portal and, as a first step, share your knowledge through the portal’s thematic libraries. You are also invited to suggest new organizations and experts from both within and outside your organization to join the network and start using the interactive features of the website. This will ensure that the BES-Net web portal serves as a living and flexible platform, adapting to its users’ needs. Additionally, it will give visibility to your organization and its knowledge products.
We hope the BES-Net web portal proves to be a useful tool for your organization and your constituencies. We aim to have a formal launch event in the fourth quarter of 2016; related communication concerning this event will be forthcoming. Until then, we look forward to your suggestions and feedback to further improve it. Thank you again for your support and contributions.
Date: 26 August 2016
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Facebook Posts
Press Releases
Launch of the UNDP-managed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES-Net) Web Portal
9 December, 2016 - Cancun, Mexico
Videos
BES-Net First Trialogue on Pollinators, Food Security and Rural Development in Eastern Europe: Summary Video
The first BES-Net Trialogue was held in Sarajevo in October 2017 to reach a common agenda for action around pollinators in Eastern Europe as the driver to foster links between ecosystem services, agriculture and rural development in the region. The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network’s (BES-Net) Trialogue provides a constructive space for the three communities of policymakers, scientists and practitioners to learn together and fostering inter-cultural understanding and interinstitutional co
Launch of the UNDP-managed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES-Net) Web Portal
On Friday, 9 December 2016, the event “Launch of the UNDP-managed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES-Net) Web Portal” took place at the Convention of Biological Diversity COP13. Presented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this video by IISD Reporting Services provides an overview of the event, which reviewed a new, cutting-edge platform to build capacity and promote global dialogue among science, policy and practice.
Sturle Hauge Simonsen Interviews Solene Le Doze, Capacity Network Coordinator for BES-Net
Sturle Hauge Simonsen, Head of Communications at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, interviews Solene Le Doze, Capacity Network Coordinator for the UNDP-managed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) following the formal launch event at CDB COP 13 in Cancun, Mexico.
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