On May 28-30, several CEM thematic group leads (NbS, Ecosystem Restoration, Resilience, Ecosystem Services, Cultural Practices and Ecosystem Management, Business and Biodiversity) and experts from the IUCN Secretariat gathered in Washington DC, to further develop the global standard for Nature-based Solutions. During the workshop, discussions took place on major concerns (targeted audience, standard objective); the group raised main comments received throughout the public consultation process; and discussed all the standard’s criteria, one by one. After working on integrating the comments raised, a new version of the standard will be available for a second round of public consultation in July.

IUCN, with CEM, published the eight Principles of NbS in 2016 (Cohen-Shacham et al, 2016). More recently, a review of these Principles informed the core Principles for successfully implementing and upscaling NbS (Cohen-Shacham et al, 2019). For the last year, IUCN has been crowd sourcing the development of a Global Standard for the design and verification of NbS, to be officially launched at the World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France in June, 2020.

CEM was well represented at the recently concluded IPBES 7. Angela, Madhav, Simone Maynard, Judy Fisher and Marina Rosales attended the plenary in different capacities. Apart from participation in the Stakeholders Day, Global Assessment negotiation sessions, and regional contact group meetings, CEM members also attended various other meetings.

The major highlights of the IPBES 7 were the approval of the SPM of the Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by the IPBES7 plenary and the election of the new Chair and Bureau of the IPBES. The Plenary approved the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) of the Global Assessment after five days of day and night negotiations. This report is the most comprehensive assessment of its kind after the Millennium Assessment in 2005. The report says one million species are threatened with extinction and that at the current rate of species extinctions, there will be grave impacts on people around the world. The IPBES Chair, Robert Watson warned:  “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

Historically, many wild plants, animals and the ecosystems they need were used sustainably by local communities. However, the ability to exploit wild and cultivated species more intensively makes it harder to use biodiversity and ecosystem services without harm. Systems also lack resilience when challenged by climate change. Although research finds ways to use aquatic systems, soil and biota more sustainably despite the changes in technology, the knowledge required spreads slowly.  Biodiversity therefore declines, despite our best efforts to promulgate restoration and nature-based solutions. Yet communities worldwide can benefit from conserving biodiversity, whether for food or other needs and enjoyments.  An important task is to spread knowledge about governance and new conservation as fast as research keeps up with changing technology and climate. Knowledge networks in English will reach the well-educated, but for popular support of environmentally-aware governments, new ideas need to go into far more languages.

For these reasons, members of the thematic group on Sustainable Use and Management of Ecosystems (SUME) created a global network to operate in 50 administrative languages. The multilingual hub is for general principles, with some 70 satellites to link communities in national and regional languages. Thus, www.naturalliance.org launched in Croatia on 24 April, in the presence of CEM chair Angela Andrade, previous chair Piet Wit and Ecosystem Services leader Simone Maynard. The launch was at meetings to discuss development of further networks, which include 12 other SUME members from all 6 temperate continents, including 9 of the 23 SUME translators and content reviewers, as listed on Naturalliance and News pages of the SUME website. Very many thanks to all those who contributed.

CEM Region for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean along with RLE-TG and PRONATURA Mexico (IUCN member) organized this webinar (May 8). The webinar was attended by 23 people from 8 countries: Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (thirteen women and ten men) from different institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Five CEM members were part of this webinar, in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean and South America. In addition, 17 IUCN member organizations in both Mesoamerica and South America were participating.

Dr. Irene Zager, a Venezuelan biologist with more than ten years of experience in ecology and conservation of biodiversity  and part of the RLE TG, did two presentations: 1) an introduction to the RLE and 2) a description of some case studies in the world. The participants recognized the excellence of the presentations and expressed their interest to be informed about the RLE as well as what steps need to be taken, and the criteria that need to be applied in order to include ecosystems from different countries and regions in the list. Click for more information on RLE

The Fisheries Expert Group -FEG- of CEM organized a  meeting of experts in collaboration with FAO and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) coordinated by EBCD.

The “Global Initiatives in Science and Practice” and NatureServe, GEO BON and EcoHealth Alliance “Pulse-of-the-Planet” webinar series continues with great success. On June 21st the session How Standards can Improve Implementation of Global Restoration Initiatives was developed with the special presentation of Bethanie Walder, Executive Director of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER).

The objective of the Ecosystem Restoration: Global Initiatives in Science and Practice Webinar Series is to provide a forum for IUCN and CEM members to gain insight and knowledge about ecological restoration and to provide opportunities for networking and direct engagement. Each month, a different speaker will give a 40-minute presentation on their work, related to one of four themes: 1) global initiatives in ecological restoration; 2) opportunities in ecological restoration; 3) technical guidance on restoration activities, and 4) new initiatives and projects. Webinars will be held the 3rd Friday of each month from 12 to 1 pm Eastern EDT using the platform “Zoom”. The series is open to all IUCN and CEM members as well as restoration enthusiasts and practitioners. The initiative aims to grow participation each month and create a forum to learn and connect with restoration practitioners from around the globe. Please contact Cara Nelson (ERTG Lead) or Brock Blevins (ERTG Co-Lead) for further information.

If you are interested in joining the next sessions, the full schedule for the calendar year and all previous session videos can be found on the Ecosystem Restoration: Global Initiatives in Science and Practice Webinar Series webpage. 

The Rewilding Task Force (RTF) was established in CEM towards the end of 2017, and over the last 18 months or so, the focus has been on providing CEM with a better understanding of the origins, trajectory and possible futures of the rewilding concept. It has carried out a number of engagement and consultation activities, from working with ‘rewilding pioneers’ on the history of rewilding, through to working with rewilding and ecological restoration practitioners and academics to develop a set of draft and preliminary rewilding guiding principles (RGPs) to help establish some ‘rewilding common ground’. The draft guiding principles work led to workshops in Florida and London in May, with further international events planned for 2019 and 2020. The workshops were attended by a wide range of organizations and academia. Discussions were open, constructive and hugely beneficial to the work of the RTF. The draft preliminary guiding principles will be shared more widely with CEM members, other commissions and Secretariat over the coming months.

Dr. I.D. Bhatt, CEM member and Senior Scientist G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development (GBPNIHESD) was involved in celebrations for the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) under the theme, "Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health" at various localities across the Indian Himalayan region through its HQs at Kosi-Katarmal, Almora and the four regional Centers (Garhwal Regional Center, Srinagar; Himachal Regional Center, Kullu; Sikkim Regional Center, Pangthang, and Northeast Regional Center, Itanagar Arunachal Pradesh). 

For the World Environmental Day, Shalini Dhyani -regional chair for South Asia- sent a message  about the solutions that ecosystems have to reduce air pollution,  improve human health and well-being.  As well as about Nature based Solutions available for urban areas. In the Harnessing Nature series you can find the first blog post from CEM S. Asia Regional Network. 

#Breathethelife #Resilientecosystemscanhelp #airpollution #WED2019 #SAsia #IUCNCEM

Holarctic steppes have an essential role in conserving threatened plant and animal species confined to open habitats. However, due to the huge loss of natural ecosystems during the past centuries’ in many regions the steppes have been preserved only in small refuges. Such refuges are the ancient burial mounds, the so called ‘kurgans’, which were built by nomadic steppic tribes in the Eneolithics and Iron Age Kurgans are widely distributed from Hungary to Mongolia, their estimated number is 600,000. The peculiarity of kurgans is that they are both important monuments of our cultural heritage and conserve grassland biodiversity even in transformed landscapes. For the effective protection of the kurgans it is of a crucial importance to have up-to-date data on their current conservation status and on the factors threatening their cultural and natural values.

That is why in the framework of the IUCN Holarctic Steppe Specialist Group we established the Eurasian Kurgan Database (http://openbiomaps.org/projects/kurgan), which based on the tools provided by citizen science aims to collect data on the conservation status and cultural values of the kurgans and also provide a public repository for setting up effective nature conservation management plans focusing on kurgan protection. We invite potential contributors to participate in the field data collection or sharing their already existing datasets in this open access repository. For more information please visit the website or contact the database manager, Balázs Deák if you are interested in being a contributor.

More information on our kurgan researches can be found here and here.

The Forest Ecosystems Specialist Group of CEM, the CEM S. Asia Region and BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus co-organized an international consultation workshop: Role of forest ecosystems in meeting SDGs in South Asia (9th May) at BITS Pilani Goa Campus. 

IUCN, GOs, NGOs, Academia and local communities attended the workshop from different parts of the country as well as Goa. Workshop aimed to understand the linkages between forest ecosystems and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other environmental goals such as Paris Agreement goals on Climate Change, and Bonn Challenge on recovery of degraded land via afforestation/ reforestation, in South Asia. One of the key features of the workshop was to discuss a Technical Report on ‘Role of forest ecosystems in meeting SDGs and Climate Goals in South Asia’ being prepared by the CEM Forest ecosystems SG.

Further, the workshop connected global science to local needs and the participants took this opportunity to discuss Goa's State Action Plan on Climate Change. The workshop brought together about 50 global conservation experts and local level practitioners of forests and biodiversity conservation such as members of local Village Biodiversity Committees (VBCs) from Goa, with the aim to link science with policy and local level intervention. discussion deliberated on opportunities and challenges for the state of Goa in meeting its SDG commitments in the forest sector.

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme, Chair of the CEM Peatlands TG have a number of work streams engaging with peatland policy makers and practitioners outside of the UK as part of their CEM role to share peatland restoration expertise globally:

Peatland Motion for the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2020: IUCN Peatlands is currently working with UK and international partners to prepare a peatland motion for congress as well as providing support to peatland side-events.

The Oasis de Figuig is one of the most beautiful oasis of Morocco whose palm grove is one of the oldest and most beautiful of the Maghreb and the northern fringe of Sahara. Located in the extreme south-east, on the borders of Eastern Morocco, Figuig is the closest oasis to Europe. Figuig or city of seven "Ksour" is an authentic city located in the middle of the desert that presents an architectural and cultural heritage that dates back to 7 or 8 centuries. The city has preserved from its history exceptional remains: great walls, ramparts, watchtowers, mosques, mausoleums and many ancient rock carvings. Figuig has beautiful gardens and a palm grove offering the local population delicious varieties of dates like the variety "Aziza".

The farmers or gardeners of the desert, manage oasis agricultural biodiversity by relying on an ancient irrigation system. These gardens are created by humans in a Saharan-type climate where temperatures often exceed 40 ° C during the hot season from March to October. Rainfall varies between 50 and 100 mm per year, distributed between November and February with extremely high evapotranspiration and environmental pressures: scarcity of water resources, drought, desertification, erosion of biodiversity that climate change induces.

These gardens are only possible in the Figuig oasis due to the presence of spring water distributed between the gardeners according to an archaic traditional system of irrigation and the setting up of the reservoirs. A sort of ancestral hydraulic engineering that has been operating for centuries to the present day according to customary law. This fragile and vulnerable artificial bioclimatic environment is the fruit of empirical traditional knowledge accumulated over centuries. It is a source of employment and a living environment for the local population.

The 1st symposium on Pterocarpus officinales mangrove ecosystems was jointly organized by the University of Puerto Rico-Bayamon, the Ministry of Environment of Dominican Republic, USFS, and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry. The participation of the Dominican delegation was sponsored by the BCyT Project of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism of DR. The event had the participation of diverse public and private institutions involved in the research and conservation of this ecosystem such as the US Dpt. Of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservation Trust Reforesta Inc., faculty and students of the University of Puerto Rico. As an immediate result of the symposium there is on-going work to create the Caribbean Pterocarpus Network: a regional, scientific, collaboration platform to support the increase the knowledge about these ecosystems in all the Caribbean region and decision-taking about the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in general.

The IUCN regional office for South America, the Ministry of Environment of Chile and the Regional Environment Secretary of the Biobio region, are offering an on-line course on “Nature-based Solutions for sustainable and resilient development” to be developed from June 3- July 5 in the Portal on Conservation and Social Equity. This course shows various approaches to NbS such as restoration in landscape scale, ecosystem-based adaptation, natural hydric infrastructure, and ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction.