A summary of the report can be found here: http://conserveonline.org/workspaces/fnr/documents/promoting-synergies-within-biodiversity-related

The complexity of the systems involved in creating thriving communities challenges researchers, planners, developers and managers.  But the potential returns are massive.

We invite papers and presentations on research and practice related to the challenge of creating and supporting thriving neighbourhoods and communities.  You may nominate whether you wish your abstract to be peer-reviewed or not.

For submission themes, dates and other information, please go to:  www.thrivingneighbourhoods.org

Free and unrestricted access to research results and publications, known as open access (OA), is key to speeding up scientific discovery. There is also growing evidence that OA maximises the impact of research through better dissemination and uptake of research findings.

But how can we make this a truly global and sustainable endeavour? This was much discussed at the recent Berlin 9 Open Access conference in Washington DC.

Unlock local research potential with open access

Leslie Chan

8 December 2011 | EN | 中文

The traditional journal publishing
system is not serving the needs
of developing countries

Flickr/moonlightbulb

The developing world is not well served by traditional research publishing, but can break new ground with open access, argues Leslie Chan.

Free and unrestricted access to research results and publications, known as open access (OA), is key to speeding up scientific discovery. There is also growing evidence that OA maximises the impact of research through better dissemination and uptake of research findings.

But how can we make this a truly global and sustainable endeavour? This was much discussed at the recent Berlin 9 Open Access conference in Washington DC.

There was a recurrent theme: that in today’s highly networked, open-knowledge environment, the traditional scholarly communication system — with the journal article as the key currency — can no longer serve the diverse needs of scholarship and discovery.

Conventional methods of evaluating research impact based on journal citations, particularly the reliance on Thomson Reuters’ journal impact factor, need to be reconsidered and redesigned to reflect new scholarly practices and the diverse means of engagement enabled by OA and the new wave of web tools (‘Web 2.0′).

OA offers an opportunity to rethink what constitutes research impact, how to reward scholarship and how to encourage research sharing — issues of particular importance for the developing world.

Emphasis on international appeal

For too long, research assessment in the developing world has closely followed practices and metrics created by wealthier nations. Even organisations such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) continue to reinforce the use of the journal impact factor and the registration of patents as metrics for national research performance.

As the impact factor is heavily biased towards journals from the developed world, researchers from poorer countries have been encouraged to publish in indexed international journals rather than national or local journals as a way to gain institutional and national recognition.

This has done much to shift the emphasis of research to topics that appeal to an international readership, obscuring local research agendas.

There is also a growing emphasis on university rankings as a proxy for excellence, based primarily on research productivity — prominent examples are Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. This means that the impact factor continues to dominate research evaluation despite widespread criticism of biased coverage and a flawed methodology underlying its calculation.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in China, where researchers and institutions are given cash incentives to publish in high-ranking international journals. This is seen as essential for boosting China’s presence in world science.

So while the total scientific publication output from China, as measured by Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science, is now only second to the United States [1], the focus on external recognition undermines locally important research and creates disincentives for the government to focus on locally relevant policy and funding.

Openness can unlock potential

This should not be the model for the developing world to emulate. Instead,policymakers should encourage experimentation with practices that take advantage of the potential of openness — in research, data, source code, educational resources and innovation.

Open repositories for publications and data, new tools for knowledge discovery and new forms of representation and visualisation can bring exciting opportunities for innovations in scholarly communication. Examples are the Open Source Drug Discovery Network and the Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository.

We are seeing the emergence of what innovation-policy scholar Caroline Wagner calls the ‘new invisible college’ [2], where researchers collaborate across disciplinary and national boundaries, driven by common interests rather than by international funding agendas.

This is a good time for research institutions with nascent capacity to overtake those in well-off nations by adopting better mechanisms for the exchange of knowledge. And they may be better placed to adapt and innovate as they are not bound by tradition.

Signs to the open road

Policymakers and researchers must begin to take advantage of these capabilities. This means thinking beyond the confines of the impact factor and towards new forms of scholarly metrics enabled by social media andnetworking tools.

An encouraging development, announced at the Berlin 9 meeting, is the World Bank’s plan to provide open access to research it funds under a licence similar to that of Creative Commons — a clear sign that the organisation is beginning to see the links between openness and innovation.

Recently, UNESCO launched the Global Open Access Portal to mobilise and coordinate OA initiatives across its member states. This late arrival on the OA scene could duplicate existing efforts, but UNESCO’s action is significant and should spur other UN bodies into serious engagement with OA.

And next year’s Berlin 10 Open Access meeting will be hosted by the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, making its first appearance in a developing country. It will be a good time and place to take stock of progress on re-evaluating the default measure of research quality.

Just as the rapid growth of mobile devices in many parts of Africa has spurred innovations in social entrepreneurship, mobile health applications and educational opportunities, so too could networked science based on OA be a source of innovation and local problem-solving in the developing world.

Leslie Chan is director of Bioline International, a non-profit electronic publishing collaboration, and supervisor for the International Development Studies programme at the University of Toronto.

REFERENCES

[1] Royal Society Knowledge, networks and nations: global scientific collaboration in the 21st century (2011)

[2] Wagner, Caroline. The new invisible college: science for development. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press (2008)

source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-communication/open-access/opinions/unlock-local-research-potential-with-open-access–1.html

"Mitigation" and "adaptation" are two important terms that are fundamental in the climate change debate. Climate mitigation is any action taken to permanently eliminate or reduce the long-term risk and hazards of climate change to human life and property.

Climate adaptation refers to the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. While mitigation tackles the causes of climate change, adaptation tackles the effects of the phenomenon. A successful adaptation can reduce vulnerability by building on and strengthening existing coping strategies.

OECD data show that one-third of the estimated climate-change-related aid in 2010 went to support adaptation (USD 9.3 billion) while two-thirds was for mitigation (USD 17.6 billion, up 69 percent from 2009).

These estimates reflect aid activities in which, according to OECD, climate change mitigation or adaptation was either the principal or a significant objective. About 60 percent of the total climate-related aid had mitigation or adaptation as the principal objective.

"Measurement of climate-related development aid by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) is an important contribution to the tracking of climate financing," says Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the 34-nation grouping of industrialized and a few emerging economies.

"We have been tracking aid in support of mitigation since 1998. This is the first time we are also reporting on support for adaptation to have a more complete picture of climate change related aid. Going forward, we urge donors to step up bringing in both mitigation and adaptation considerations into their development policies," Gurría, a Mexican national, adds.

According to OECD, in certain cases, funds can be tagged as both mitigation and adaptation-related. So it is important to avoid double-counting. Of the total USD 22.9 billion in finance, an estimated USD 4 billion supported both mitigation and adaptation objectives.

"All our aid data are publicly available, bringing transparency and accountability to what countries and multilateral institutions are doing in this area," Gurria assures.

The OECD, which claims to have been working on climate change economics and policy since the late 1980s to identify and implement least-cost policy responses, is also advising governments on how to design and use innovative financial instruments – such as green bonds – to attract new sources of capital, including from pension funds and other institutional investors.

The organisation has also recently launched the climate change chapter of the Environmental Outlook to 2050 and is implementing its Green Growth Strategy.

Rio Conventions

The developed countries that signed the three Rio Conventions in 1992 committed themselves to assist developing countries in the implementation of these Conventions. Since 1998 the DAC has monitored aid targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions through its ‘Creditor Reporting System’ (CRS) using the so called "Rio markers".

The Rio marker on climate change mitigation was established by the DAC in close collaboration with the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to track aid flows that support the implementation of the Convention.

In December 2009 the DAC approved a new marker to also track aid in support of climate change adaptation. This complements the climate change mitigation marker, and thus allows the presentation of a more complete picture of climate-change-related aid.

First data on the new marker, relating to 2010 flows, will become available at the end of 2011, the OECD says in abackground paper. Work is on going to extend the coverage of DAC statistics on climate finance to bilateral non-concessional flows and multilateral flows, it adds.

At the 15^th Conference of Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen in 2009, developed counties agreed to provide "new and additional resources" for adaptation and mitigation "approaching USD 30 billion for the period 2010-12".

For the longer term, developed countries committed to "a goal of mobilising jointly USD 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries" through a "wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance".

The DAC helps monitor the implementation of these commitments by making available aggregate statistics on climate change-related aid as illustrated in this note. Information on the underlying projects can be accessed in the DAC’s online database.

Every aid activity reported to the CRS is screened and marked as either (i) targeting the Conventions as a ‘principal objective’ or a ‘significant objective’, or (ii) not targeting the objective.

Biodiversity-related aid is defined as activities that promote at least one of the three objectives of the Convention: the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components (ecosystems, species or genetic resources), or fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of the utilisation of genetic resources.

Desertification-related aid is defined as activities that combat desertification or mitigate the effects of drought in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas through prevention and/or reduction of land degradation, rehabilitation of partly degraded land, or reclamation of desertified land.

limate change mitigation-related aid is defined as activities that contribute to the objective of stabilisation of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system by promoting efforts to reduce or limit GHG emissions or to enhance GHG sequestration.

In December 2009 the DAC members approved a new marker to also track aid in support of climate change adaptation. This new marker will complement the existing climate change mitigation marker, and thus allow presentation of a more complete picture of aid in support of developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. [IDN-InDepthNews – December 8, 2011]

Image: How climate change, associated with increased carbon dioxide levels, has affected plant growth.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Related IDN Articles:
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/planet-earth/climate-change

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

source: http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/596-donors-helping-to-tackle-climate-change

From 7-9 December, 2011 Germany will host a workshop in Bonn in coordination with UNEP for about 100 international experts. The workshop will prepare the 2nd session of theIPBES plenary scheduled for April 2012 and focus on theIPBES topic "policy support/policy relevance".

This topic is of particular interest from a German point of view. It is vital that the scientific results of IPBES are made available both on demand and for policy makers and thus constitute an important basis for day-to-day political decision-making. By hosting this international workshop Germany intends to proactively push an important topic and thus further contribute to the international process. The Network-forum for biodiversity research Germany (NeFo) at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) will prepare and organise the planned workshop.

Further information on the workshop, in particular for participants

Background

Modern life has weakened the connections between humans and nature and the trend does not augur well for the sustainability of life on earth. Ever increasing rates of habitat and ecosystem degradation will result in the eventual non-existence of living organisms on earth, the only place where humans can live, as far as we know. The history of human interaction with nature demonstrates destructive consequences.

Concerns about the loss of biodiversity came to the attention of the international community in 1972, but it took 20 years before globally agreed terms of reference came into force as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Since then 192 parties have joined this convention and agreed to work together toward its objectives: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources, including appropriate access to genetic resources and appropriate transfer of relevant technologies which take into account all rights over those resources and technologies, and appropriate funding.

CBD changed protection priorities from species to ecosystems. This sounds feasible in principle, but the implementation of rules and regulations faces many challenges, mainly owing to technical and administrative inadequacies. CBD’s approach to the conservation of biological resources and the sustainable use of its components (including the equitable sharing of its benefits) calls for inclusion of environmental concerns in all national and regional development policies. The Convention’s latest development is a set of 20 targets to be considered as a global roadmap towards 2020.

Prior to the CBD, a regional agreement came into existence called the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the Member States. In 1992, the organization was expanded to include seven new members, namely: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Republic of Uzbekistan (Figure1).

Figure1. Map of the Eco region

The region is full of bright trading prospects. Despite its newness, ECO has developed into a thriving regional organization. Its international stature is growing. Nevertheless, the organization faces daunting challenges with respect to realization of its objectives and goals. Over the past 12 years the member states have been collaborating to accelerate the pace of regional development through their common endeavours. Besides shared cultural and historic affinities, they have been able to use the existing infrastructural and business links to further fortify their resolve to transfer their hopes and aspirations into a tangible reality.

Most of ECO region countries have joined or ratified the international natural environment legal instruments such as the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), the World Heritage Convention (WHC), the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RAMSAR), Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), and so forth being considered as applicable tools for the protection and improvements of Asian natural environment and biodiversity.

Nevertheless, rapid population growth, industrialization, urbanization, increasing agricultural demands, droughts and other natural disasters and ineffective development policies are amongst factors fast degrading the natural resource base and influencing the state of the environment in the region and posing serious threats to sustainable development namely loss of biodiversity, pollution and depletion of freshwater resources, increasing threatened specie, mortality rates and contagious diseases, tourism pressures on protected areas, introduction of Alien Fauna and Flora, loss of genetic diversity, deforestation and loss of arable and grazing land, widespread land degradation and desertification. These have wider implications on food security, sustainable natural resources management, human health and efforts towards poverty alleviation.

Some studies show that several practices in the region have no ecological justification or economic rationale. Therefore improved and new conservation and management approaches are required.

Proposed Initiative

To answer these complex needs, a regional initiative has been proposed to integrate National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) of all state members of the ECO region in order to develop a Regional Biodiversity Plan of Action (RBPA). This Plan will add to the framework plan of action on environmental cooperation and global warming for ECO member states (2011-2015) and could be used as a model for other neighbouring regions as well as other regional organizations and act as a roadmap for the implementation of CBD and achievement of Aichi Nagoya biodiversity targets. The initiative will be formally proposed by the ECO Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ECO-IEST) to be developed under supervision of a Regional Steering Committee consisting of representatives of state members, academic centres and NGOs. It is expected that the results of such initiatives will feed into the NBSAPs to ‘enhance the benefits to all forms of biodiversity and ecosystem services’, particular with regard to target 14 of the Aichi Nagoya Targets: ‘By 2020, ecosystems that provide essential services, including services related to water, and contribute to health, livelihoods and well-being are restored and safeguarded, taking into account the needs of women, indigenous and local communities, and the poor and vulnerable’.

Development of the RBAP would start with an initial assessment in the following stages:

- Geographical and land characteristics

- Protected Area systems and other in situ conservation

- Socio-economic situation including cultural, religious and traditional values

- Environmental legal systems

- Long-term development visions

The next phase of the initiative will be to establish coordination mechanisms of the RBPA. A monitoring framework also needs to be developed for tracking progress, effectiveness, and gaps in the Plan not only in the ECO region as a whole but also in each country as an important element in the big picture. A series of consultations, roundtables and workshops should be organized to discuss challenges and take appropriate decisions with regard to tackling barriers to the implementation of the Plan.

As the result of the development of RBAP many of the biodiversity challenges within the region will be identified and actions and programmes for their management will be defined. The benefits of developing Regional Biodiversity Action Plan is in accordance to the ECO plan of action and will be as indicated below:

• Conservation of Biodiversity
• Joint Efforts for Conservation of Transboundary Wetlands and Water Bodies
• Preservation, Management and Monitoring of Water basins and Resources
• Conducting Joint coherent actions on Endangered Species, Wildlife Migration Patterns, Mortality Rates, Contagious Diseases and International Trade
• Restriction on the Introduction of Alien Fauna and Flora
• Exchange of Biodiversity Museum Specimens and Biological Samples
• Combating Desertification, Deforestation, Land Erosion and Protection of Mountain Ecosystems

Conclusion

Although individual countries and not regions have mandatory tasks and obligations to undertake as members of the Convention, regional initiatives are required to facilitate synergies and sharing of experiences among countries with similar conditions and/or common interests. These arrangements would also benefit from inclusion of local communities in high-level decision-making fora.

Another benefit of the initiative would be enhanced co-ordination and cooperation between countries as well as stronger organizational and systematic capacities.

Existing institutional frameworks (such as ECO-IEST) will play a crucial role in this initiative not only during the development phase but also for implementation of the RBAP. It is also expected that this approach will bring coherence to national legal frameworks and facilities for the implementation of CBD.

There is no doubt that the initiative needs flexibility to be inclusive and able to work within the legal limitations of all state members. Public participation, cooperation mechanisms, decision-making support methods and a series of success indicators are substantial elements of such an initiative.

REFERENCES

Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). (2011). framework plan of action on environmental cooperation and global warming for ECO member states. Tehran ECO Secretariat.

Etienne, D. (2005). “Strategic Action Programme for the Conservation of the Biological Diversity (SAP BIO) in the Mediterranean Region,” CBD Technical Series 17:95-96.

Lasen Diaz, C. (2000). Regional Approaches to Implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity: The Case of Access to Genetic Resources. Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, London, United Kingdom.

Lochner, P. et al. (2003). “Aligning the Diverse: The Development of a Biodiversity Conservation Strategy for the Cape Floristic Region,” Biological Conservation 112:29-43.

Mohammadi Fazel, A. (2001). Ethics and Conservation of Biological Diversity, Proceedings of the International on Environment, Religion and Culture. UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya.

Mohammadi Fazel, A. and Khorasani, N. (2005). “Regional Initiative for Conservation of Biological Diversity in the Middle East, With an Approach to Divine and Spiritual Instructions,” CBD Technical Series 17:113-115.

link for download: http://uoe.academia.edu/AsgharFAZEL/Papers/842728/REGIONAL_INITIATIVE_FOR_CONSERVATION_OF_BIOLOGICAL_DIVERSITY_IN_THE_MIDDLE-EAST_WITH_AN_APPROACH_TO_DIVINE_AND_SPIRITUAL_

Further down the line, next year’s Rio+20 meeting will be an opportunity to take stock of what progress has — and has not — taken place in the 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in the same city, which placed sustainable development on the international political agenda and resulted in treaties on climate change, persistent pollutants, biodiversity and desertification.

But the picture is not all gloomy. Significant scientific advances have helped to produce new technologies, from solar cells to space-based monitoring of natural disasters, and shed light on the problems the world faces whilst offering solutions.

Sustainable innovation: the key to global development

David Dickson

11 November 2011 | EN | ES | FR | 中文

Next year’s Rio+20 meeting must put science-based innovation at the heart of the development agenda. But the real battle will be political.

In an ominous sign of things to come, last week’s G20 meeting of the world’s leading economies in Cannes, France was dominated by discussion of the financial turmoil in Europe — overshadowing a debate, for which many had hoped, on the future of global development.

The main speaker on the latter topic was Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who used the occasion to remind participants that, whatever the difficulties of the world’s industrialised nations, the biggest problem facing the planet as a whole remains the gap between the rich and the poor.

The solution, said Gates, lies in devising ways of encouraging greater technological innovation, in areas such as food security and the elimination of disease. Only by stimulating their own capacity for innovation, he argued, can poor countries rescue the majority of their populations from grinding poverty and the social ills that accompany it.

It is a message that needs repeating as often as possible. In particular, the importance of science-based innovation must lie at the heart of next June’s Rio+20 discussions on sustainable development. Effective innovation holds the key to development, just as it does to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

But innovation involves more than just science and technology. It is a social process in which both economic and – ultimately – political factors have important roles to play.

The real challenge in Rio will be to find ways of harnessing these forces to achieve a productive outcome through sustainable innovation, rather than letting them become an obstacle on which negotiations flounder, as they did at the climate summit in Copenhagen two years ago.

Social complexities

To his credit, Gates seems to have taken on board the complexity of the challenge. In its early days, the Gates Foundation focussed much of its energy on achieving big and significant scientific and technology breakthroughs in key fields, encapsulated in its ‘grand challenges’ programme.

While these have played a significant role in re-establishing the importance of science on the international development agenda, they have also come under fire for implying that development can be a science-driven process — a ‘magic bullet’ approach that ignores the complexities of applying science to address social needs.

In his speech at Cannes, Gates took a broader view, stressing the need to address social processes, from patent policy to government regulation, through which innovation takes place. Only by addressing these, he correctly pointed out, can the full potential contribution of science to development be achieved.

But this, in turn, comes up against the political frameworks within which these social processes operate. And it raises a new question: to achieve true global development, can the current political framework encourage the type of social inclusion that even Gates recognises as necessary?

Low expectations

Take climate change, for example. It is ironic that, just when many developing countries are waking up to the implications of global warming — for example, in terms of threats to their future food security — public opinion surveys reveal that scepticism about the need for urgent climate action is growing in the developed world, particularly (but not solely) in the United States.

While countries such as Brazil and China are building adaptation policies into their development strategies — including plans to make green technologies a cornerstone of their export industries — international negotiations aimed at addressing the root causes of the climate problem have been in political stalemate since Copenhagen.

As a result, expectations are low for any significant breakthroughs in the next round of negotiations, due to open in Durban, South Africa, at the end of this month. At the same time, the developing world is facing an increasing toll of climate related disasters, from massive flooding in Southern Asia to the droughts in East Africa.

A new world order?

Further down the line, next year’s Rio+20 meeting will be an opportunity to take stock of what progress has — and has not — taken place in the 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in the same city, which placed sustainable development on the international political agenda and resulted in treaties on climate change, persistent pollutants, biodiversity and desertification.

But the picture is not all gloomy. Significant scientific advances have helped to produce new technologies, from solar cells to space-based monitoring of natural disasters, and shed light on the problems the world faces whilst offering solutions.

Now, the major hurdle is not so much producing even more relevant science and technology, but building the capacity to put what has been produced to good use.

Free markets alone are clearly not up to this task. But challenging the market — by establishing a World Environment Organisation with equal clout to that of the World Trade Organisation, for example — means challenging the interests of those who benefit most from it.

As many have pointed out, the current global economic crisis represents an ideal opportunity to address this challenge head-on. And, at least in principle, the Rio+20 meeting could be an opportunity to put flesh on the bones of a new world order built on sustainable and inclusive innovation.

Whether any of the world’s major developed nations have the guts to allow this to be put on the agenda, given the sacrifices it will inevitably require them to make, remains to be seen. Don’t hold your breath.

David Dickson
Editor, SciDev.Net

source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/science-at-rio-20/editorials/sustainable-innovation-the-key-to-global-development-1.html

In a live and interactive web TV programme from New York, two of the key figures driving the response to the planet’s loss of biodiversity will be answering you questions about the UNDB.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Monique Barbut, CEO and Chair of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) join us live online at www.studiotalk.tv at 12.00 EST / 16.00 GMT / 17.00 BST / 18.00 CET on Tuesday 20th September.

Biodiversity is of vital importance to us all. It is the basis for a wide range of ecosystem services on which we depend for food security, human health, clean air and water. Biodiversity contributes to local livelihoods and economic development and is essential in the fight against poverty.

Yet despite its huge importance, the planet’s biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate.

The main causes, including habitat and climate change, overexploitation and pollution, are constant or increasing in their intensity. As a result ecosystems such as forests, coral reefs and the rivers of our world are declining in most parts of the world and many species moving closer to extinction. The earliest and most severe impacts of biodiversity loss are felt by the poor, but ultimately all societies and communities will suffer.

Faced with this reality, in May 2010 the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) urged that concerted and effective action was needed if we were to avoid reaching irreversible global ecological tipping points. Five months later the CBD adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 to inspire and drive change by every country.

In support of this Plan, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 – 2020 as the UN Decade on Biodiversity (UNDB). Through the Decade, the entire UN system will work to support implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and its 20 ambitious yet achievable targets, collectively known as the Aichi Targets.

The UNDB will encourage every government, business and individual to take biodiversity into account in all their planning and actions.

In a live and interactive web TV programme from New York, two of the key figures driving the response to the planet’s loss of biodiversity will be answering you questions about the UNDB.

Ahmed Djoghlaf is Executive Secretary of the CBD and Monique Barbut is CEO and Chair of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), whose funding will be vital as it will assist developing countries to implement the CBD’s Strategic Plan.

They will discuss the CBD’s bold plans and the importance of taking action now to avert even more serious loss of biodiversity; how the entire UN system is driving to make the UNBD a lasting success, and the role of the GEF.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Monique Barbut, CEO and Chair of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) join us live online at www.studiotalk.tv at 12.00 EST / 16.00 GMT / 17.00 BST / 18.00 CET on Tuesday 20th September.

For more information visit: www.cbd.int/2011-2020

To view this WebTV show, you’ll need Adobe Flash installed. If you don’t already have it, you can download it by clicking here.

On the first day and in the opening session, Dr. Asghar Mohammadi Fazel president of the ECO-IEST welcomed to the participants and delivered a presentation about the history of the institute and its target and action plans for the ECO region. Dr. Fazel noted that according to the decision of the 3rd ECO Ministerial Meeting on Environment (30 June 2006, Almaty, Kazakhstan), the ECO Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ECO-IEST) has been established to generate knowledge through research and studies on environment in ECO region; to strengthen human resources through training and educational programs, seeking to expand theoretical and practical knowledge; to promote scientific and technical cooperation and exchange of experiences and create a network of experts in the region; and to strengthen bilateral and multilateral co-operation to mobilize international assistance for environmental conservation in the ECO region.

Dr. Fazel Also explained that after upgrading the College of Environment to University of Environment (UOE), the ECO-IEST was officially inaugurated in February 2011, by H.E Mr. Mohammad Javad MohammadiZadeh, Vice President of Islamic Republic of Iran and Head of the Department of Environment (DoE), and H.E Mr. YahyaMaroofi, ECO Secretary General. At the end of his presentation Dr. Fazel emphasized on this opportunity within the course to exchange information and experiences in the region and try to develop concept papers for new environmental projects for the region.

After an introduction by all participants, the Coordinator of the ECO-IEST, Mrs. Fazeli, introduced the PCEM and its mission as well outcomes. She also talked about the plans and programmes for level 1 and 2 of the course and presented the weekly programmes for the first 3 weeks, which included not only theoretical but also practical work and group activities. Some of the subjects for level 1 of the course included MEA, introduction to ECO, Environmental Economic, CEPA and participatory approaches, Environmental law and policy, etc.  Theoretical and practical classes of PCEM would be held in 6 week in English. Last Ms. Fazeli mentioned that the ECO-IEST team has put lots of efforts to make this course as successful as possible; she also introduced the ECO-IEST team members and the responsibility of each person for further contacts and arrangements.

At the end of this opening session the participants had an introduction tour in the University to become familiar with different sections of the university campus. A video clip about the activities of the UOE during the last year was also presented in this opening session.

This event will take academia, education, environmental and sustainable development policy makers, senior members of academic institutions, representatives of government and non-governmental organisations, international development agencies, administrators and teachers, sustainable development practitioners and environmental management professionals through the need for greening education and then discuss effective initiatives that educational institutions need to take to make sustainability an integral part of teaching and learning.

The event provides an exclusive forum to examine how global warming, climate change and other environmental concerns are reshaping education globally, deliberate on the role of academia in making world cleaner, greener and more sustainable, discuss cutting-edge issues in greening education and share best practices from around the world in respect to education for sustainability.

Further to the knowledge sharing on greening education including topics such as ecologizing curriculum (incorporating sustainability), greening of courses and creating low carbon education institutions; the upcoming event also provides an excellent networking opportunity with academia, sustainable development practitioners and other stakeholders in Europe and beyond. An excursion (optional) on Saturday the 22nd of October, 2011 is planned which will also provide an additional and informal networking opportunity.

For further information, please see the event details.

http://www.etechgermany.com/IGEE2011.pdf

Or contact via email: mail@etechgermany.com