Our 54^th Steering Committee will be held in-person on July 15, 16 and 17^th in Kigali, Rwanda before the African Protected Area Congress. The meeting will be joined by the steering committee members, as well as by several African-based members and colleagues from IUCN Africa who will share with us their experience on ecosystem-based approaches being led in Africa and their involvement in the region. This is a great opportunity to consider possible collaborations and to continue learning from first-hand experiences to continue building and strengthening CEM alliances globally.

The first IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) took place in Kigali, Rwanda during July 18-23^rd. The Congress was the first ever continent-gathering event of its king to involve African leaders from more than 53 African countries, indigenous groups, citizens and interest groups to discuss the role of protected areas in conserving nature, safeguarding Africa’s wildlife and vital ecosystems, and promoting sustainable development while conserving Africa’s cultural heritage and traditions. 

Several CEM members participated in the Congress. Hillary Masundire, former CEM chair gave an interactive workshop on Ecosystem-based Adaptation and its application and use for the management of protected areas. David Keith, along with a team of RLE including David Obura, Eric Kaly, Parfait Teto and Somaya Ghoraba gave a presentation on how the Red List of Ecosystems can serve to inform and implement management of African Protected Areas.

We are glad to welcome several new group leaders, co-leaders and regional chairs to the CEM team. The newly appointed leaders are:

Shalini Dhyani as vice chair for Asia and member of the CEM Steering Committee

Somaya Ghoraba as regional chair for North Africa

Shane Orchard as lead of Oceania

Toni Hay as co-lead of Oceania

Ian Convery as lead for Europe

Jennifer Pierce as lead for Urban Ecosystems Specialist Group

Soule Moussa as co-lead for Urban Ecosystems Specialist Group

Deepu Sivadas as regional chair for South Asia

Sushila Nepali as co-lead for South Asia

Salima Medouar as lead for the Young Professional Network

Welcome all to the team!

A new task force has been created with the purpose of working to develop the IUCN Green Status of Ecosystems, which will provide an assessment of past, current and future recovery of ecosystems. The aim of the GSE Task Force is to develop a method to assess the current recovery status of an ecosystem, develop a method to assess past conservation success and recovery potential for ecosystems which will form the basis for the IUCN GSE guidelines, test and refine the proposed approach with 20+ case study ecosystems across terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms, from a spectrum of data-rich to data-limited examples. The GSE Task Force aims to complement the Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) and the GSS by aligning the GSE as much as possible with the objectives, assessment methods and outputs of the GSS (IUCN 2021).

For more information in this new task force contact Jessica Walsh, lead of the GSE Task Force.

The Forest Specialist Group has launched their official webinar series with the session Intact forests: Safeguarding planetary processes. The session took place virtually and was organized by Himlal Baral (group lead) and Rajiv Kumar (co-lead), and hosted by Professor Peter R Hobson and Dr. Robin Sears who discussed around the topics of advocating for future proofing intact forests and the essential ecosystem services they provide by affording strict protection to all remaining IFLs. Furthermore, that IFLs become learning landscapes for developing ecosystem-based practices of sustainable forest management in commercial forests and plantations.

Watch the full webinar here.

Following 8 years of collaboration in joint conservation projects, the IUCN and the International Association of Falconry - IAF have signed an MoU to formalize and promote this relationship. The IUCN-CEM Sustainable Use and Ecosystem Thematic Group (SUME) will be the contact point with the IAF. To both celebrate and initiate this agreement, the two organizations held a joint conference at the Abu Dhabi Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition titled “The Significance of Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLC) in Linking Intangible Cultural Heritage and Wildlife Conservation”.

The IUCN President, Razan al Mubarak and IAF President, Majed al Mansouri, both addressed the Meeting which was followed by presentations of conservation projects from all over the world, initiated and managed by falconers and involving IPLC. The second joint action under this MoU will be the launching of another multilingual portal: www.falconet.org.  This portal will “go live” during the conference and is designed to report the involvement of falconers in conservation, and will promote this engagement. This is the start of an exciting new phase for both SUME and IAF and we hope to follow through with a further conference and engagement in new conservation initiatives in the coming year.

Shalini Dhyani, newly appointed Vice Chair for Asia has been awarded the 2022 UNESCO-TWAS Associateship grant to work on “Realizing the potential of 4R (Right trees on the Right landscape for the Right purpose and Respecting local rights)” in developing multi-criteria optimization in Sustainable Land Restoration for localizing Climate and Development Goals in India”. The grant will facilitate a 3 year (2022-2025) mobility to collaborate for research with the center of excellence in forestry at Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Indonesia. Congratulations Shalini!

During 3 days at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the Nature-based Solutions Conference 2022 hosted experts from around the world to share their knowledge and experience to enhance understanding of the value of nature-based solutions to societal challenges to help ensure the sustainable development of societies and ecosystems. During the event, Pam McElwee, CEM group leader for Cultural Practices Thematic Group and Angela Andrade, CEM Chair, led a session titled “Defining NbS Solutions for whom, by whom and for what?”

The session can be watched here and all recordings can be viewed here, including keynotes and wrap-ups, themed sessions, and virtual poster presentations.

The Selecting Climate Change Projection Sets for Mitigation, Adaptation, and Risk Management Applications training led by the NASA Earth Science Applied Sciences, where Pam McElwee participated, took place virtually on September 19 – 20th. The two-part webinar series provided an overview of resources for choosing climate projection sets for mitigation, adaptation, and risk management applications. The webinar touched on opportunities and models to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, conservation and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development and protection, restoration and promotion sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

During the 58^th annual Congress of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) which took place in Cartagena, Colombia from July 10-14^th, Doris Cordero, CEM Regional chair for South America presented the latest results of the Red List of Ecosystems in Latin America.

Her presentation had a special focus on introducing the RLE tool as well as the developments from several countries in the region and highlighted the use and the relevance of the Red List of Ecosystems for the decision-making and implementation of protected areas, identification of key spots for conservation and restoration, etc. Irene Zagner, from the RLE specialist group also participated in the session and played a key role in responding technical questions asked by participants during the event.

The session was very well received and spawned a great interest among the attendees, due to the innovation of the RLE itself as well as for its outreach and the work led by CEM so far.

On September 21^st, CEM and the Species Survival Commission (SSC) organized an event on "Showcasing Nature-based Solutions in Latin America", during the Science Summit, at the 77th United Nations General Assembly. This event, organized and moderated by the CEM NbS TG leads, Emmanuelle Cohen-Shacham and Edna Cabecinha, was a great opportunity to present the excellent work done in the Latin America region, followed by an interesting Q&A.

Angela Andrade presented “Adaptation to climate change in the water regulation and supply for the Area of Chingaza, Sumapaz, Guerrero” and Manuela Fernandez presented “The role of wetlands in drylands of North Patagonia, Argentina, under extensive grazing management”, Ruth Bennett presented “Building Bird Friendly landscapes in coffee producing regions of Colombia and Peru” and Claudia Cordero presented “Andean Resilience: strengthening small-scale agricultural production in vulnerable areas to climate change in the highlands of Ecuador".

These four case-studies all have implemented the Global Standard for NbS to assess their intervention, and they are part of a larger project of NbS collection that is currently being analyzed at the CEM NbS TG.

On September 22, at the "5th Conference on University Research on Climate Change" addressing the potential of "NbS to Climate Change”, at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, Edna Cabecinha presented a case study on NbS implementation to tackle climate change in Atlantic landscapes. Emmanuelle presented the work developed on Nature-based Solutions - from definition to implementation at the same event, as well as at Ecumene 2022: Global Financial Forum on September 28-30.

A session on “The link between Ecosystem Services and Nature-based Solutions for more resilient society and nature”, organized by the CEM NbS TG leads, will take place on October 11^th, at the ESP Conference in Heraklion, Greece. Twelve presentations and a rich discussion are expected, to help strengthen these concepts.

The CEM Ecosystem Restoration Thematic Group (ERTG) is continuing to assist the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration with leading the co-development of standards of practice to guide the application of the Decade’s ten principles for ecosystem restoration, in collaboration with the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), and the FAO-led UN Decade Task Force on Best Practices. On September 6^th, the ERTG, SER, and the Best Practices Task Force of the Decade hosted a workshop at the Society for Ecological Restoration’s European Conference in Alicante, Spain, titled “Developing Guidance for Effective Ecosystem Restoration” in the context of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UN Decade). During the workshop, 68 participants provided feedback on and inputs to a first draft of Standards of Practice for Ecosystem Restoration. The writing team has produced a second draft of the standards of practice based on inputs received to date and will be requesting feedback and inputs on that draft through a Global Consultation opportunity, posted on the UN Decade website.  CEM members are encouraged to participate in the Global Consultation to add their perspectives. An email will be circulated to CEM members when the consultation is open.

An international webinar was organised by the Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute, Bangalore on “Developing Mining and Biodiversity Conservation Co-management Plans: Priority and Principles” on 22 September 2022. Vice Chair for Asia, Dr. Shalini Dhyani gave a session on Reducing risks and conserving biodiversity in mining areas: Lessons from Central India and Rajasthan.

In collaboration with the IUCN Species Survival Commission, CEM co-hosted the discussion panel "The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems: opportunities and challenges to support the post 2020 framework and the Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America", where they had the opportunity to learn more about this knowledge product, the advances in the region and its applications to address the most urgent global challenges.

The panel took place on Wednesday, September 21^st and was part of the Global Biodiversity Day of Science Summit at the United Nations General Assembly.

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is pleased to announce its 4th ESP Europe Conference, to be held in person at Heraklion, Greece, or online. On October 10^th-14^th, over 400 presentations will address the overarching theme of this years’ conference: “Ecosystem Services empowering people and societies in times of crises”.

You are invited to check the session on “Advancing understanding of Nature-based solutions in impact assessment”, organized by CEM member Steve Edwards, to be held at the upcoming International Association of Impact Assessment 2023 annual conference, to held in Kuching, Malaysia, in May.

This Session will discuss NbS in the context of impact assessment, describe progress of a framework to design, implement and scale up NbS actions (Global Standard for NbS), review cases where NbS are being used, and discuss how to integrate NbS clearly into policy and impact assessment. More information on Sessions is available here. Call for abstracts is open through November 7. Should someone want to make a presentation on NbS, they need to submit an abstract and tag this session.

The Institutional level Resilient Solutions Conference and Expo 2022: Unlocking innovations and investments for green mountain economies is taking place from 5- 7 December 2022 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Please find the call for proposal - for  individuals, organisations, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and research institutions from the HKH region and beyond - to be part of the conference, and showcase their solutions at the Expo (6 December 2022), and participate in a business pitch to scale the solution. The conference will take stock of existing solutions, assess their scalability, and select solutions for their scaling potential in the HKH region. ICIMOD strives to identify, package, and demonstrate innovative and context-specific solutions for the region.

The ERTG welcomes CEM member participation in the final three webinars in the series, Ecosystem Restoration: Global Initiatives in Science and Practice. Webinars are held on the 3^rd Friday every month at 12:00 noon, Eastern Time. In October, Uromi Goodale and Marian Chau, from the IUCN Seed Conservation Specialist Group, will speak about the global need for seed banks to address seed supply shortages in ecosystem restoration; in November, Gerhard Overbek, from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Southern Brazil, will speak about subtropical grassland restoration; and in December, Julia Mangueira from The Nature Conservancy will share socio-ecological aspects of conservation and restoration in Brazil.

If you have not yet registered for the series, you can Register Here. To watch videos of past presentations, visit the complete Series YouTube Playlist.  Planning is underway for the 2023 restoration webinar series and the schedule for the year will be available in early January.

Last Thursday, June 30^th, the CEM Impact Mitigation and Ecological Compensation Thematic Group, led by Martine Maron, Amrei von Hase, Mark Johnston, Annie Dakmejian, Stacey Baggaley, Fabrice Quètier, Camille Le Guen, Carleigh Whitman and Nadine McCormick hosted our 15^th CEM dialogue titled Nature Positive: What it is and how to do it. The webinar focused on how actions for biodiversity are gaining significant momentum and with this, the need for a “nature positive” economy and for businesses to be “nature positive” across value chains which include co-ordination, collaboration, collective action and sharing of experiences and lessons learnt. The Dialogue provided an overview on what nature positive means, how it differs from net positive or net gain, and how businesses can incorporate nature positive, net positive impact or net gain into and across their global operations and activities.

Watch the full session here.

The July CEM Dialogue was co-hosted by the Socio-Ecological Resilience and Transformation Thematic Group along with the CEM Young Professional Network titled “Resilience: Just another buzzword?” What about "transformation" and "systems"? Can they really help us conserve nature more effectively? The objective of the dialogue was to introduce the core concepts of resilience and to SERT's work as well as to gain a basic understanding of resilience concepts, see some connections to nature-based solutions, working land & seascapes, decentralized technologies, cultural practices & indigeneity, governance & power, and the Red List of Ecosystems. Some of the speakers included Dorian Fougères and Manuela Ruiz, lead and co-lead of SERT, Deepu Sivadas, former YPN lead, Salima Medouar, current YPN lead and several CEM YPN members.

Watch the full session here.

Our latest CEM Dialogue took place on September 22^nd, where along with the IUCN Gender Group, we hosted a discussion entitled Engaging men and boys to address Gender-based Violence in coastal biodiversity management. The session, led by Pam McElwee, in alliance with the USAID and IUCN Gender included interventions from amie Wen-Besson, IUCN Senior Gender Programme Manager, Luis Ramos, USAID Environmental Project Management Specialist, Zulma Mendoza, ORMACC's Chief of Party for RCBP to USAID, Adalberto Blanco, Masculinities Trainer and Consultant, Jackeline Siles, IUCN Senior Gender Programme Manager and Luis González, UNES Director of Advocacy and Public Policy focused on the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project on gender-responsive programming and efforts to engage men and boys to address gender-based violence and gender inequalities in coastal-biodiversity management. The recount their experiences working on masculinities in these coastal communities and highlight the importance of addressing gender inequalities and GBV for effective ecosystem management.

Watch the full session here.

To support the management of protected areas and conservation of biodiversity in Egypt, a team of researchers from IUCN North Africa and Alexandria University in Egypt, led by Somaya Ghoroba, newly appointed regional chair for North Africa, applied the RLE to assess the risk of collapse of three ecosystems – wetland, sand plain, and salt marshes within the Burullus protected area. This work represents strategic assessments that provide detailed information for managers and decision-makers to support the strategic management of ecosystems. By identifying the risk status of the assessed ecosystems, managers can prohibit the most threatening activities responsible for ecosystem risk. The assessment also increases our understanding of ecosystem dynamics, which is a first step towards enhancing the delivery of ecosystem services and conserving biodiversity.

You can read the full publication here.

CEM member Fabio Berzaghi, in collaboration with economists and social scientists, published two articles describing a new framework to value carbon services provided by wild animals such as elephants or whales, to finance biodiversity conservation and Nature-based Solutions (NbS). In the first paper published in Nature Climate Change, they explain how science, finance, and law are the basis of this new framework that can help finance the high costs of protecting natural ecosystems through the carbon offsets produced by wild animals.

In the second paper published in PNAS, this framework is applied to value carbon services of African forest elephants whose behavior decreases the density of smaller plants and trees, which in turn helps increase the number of larger trees. These larger trees favored by elephant activity are also able to capture more carbon because they are more carbon-dense than the average tree.

The IUCN French National Committee has published "Nature-based Solutions for Coastal Risk Reduction in France”. This collection of case-studies presents 9 feedbacks of concrete projects of preservation, restoration and sustainable management of coastal ecosystems implemented in mainland France and overseas. It identifies the success factors of each project to guide local stakeholders who wish to engage in the process. This casebook illustrates the importance of setting up participatory approaches to co-construction, consultation, and communication between all the stakeholders in a territory. Moreover, they show the need to strengthen the human and financial resources devoted to these actions to guarantee the sustainability of these projects in the long term.

Saurahb Guleri, along with a group of scientists have released a recent publication in the Asian Journal of Mycology, regarding the effect of microfungi on higher altitude plants to show detrimental effect on plants and their redundancy to establish or inhibit the glacier of that area.

Rosbakh, Sergey & Chalmandrier, Loïc & Phartyal, Shyam & Poschlod, Peter. (2022).

Poudel, Sanjeev & Pandit, Ram & Dhital, Krishna. (2022). Heliyon. 8 .e10439. 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10439.

Wani, Zishan Ahmad, Qamer Ridwan, Sajid Khan, Shreekar Pant, Sazada Siddiqui, Mahmoud Moustafa, Ahmed Ezzat Ahmad, and Habab M. Yassin. 2022. Sustainability 14, no. 14: 8491. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148491

Wani, Z.A., Satish, K.V., Islam, T. et al. Vegetos (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42535-022-00428-w

Restoration Ecology, Wiley (IF: 4.181)! Guest Editors: Kripal Singh, P.C. Abhilash, S.K. Maiti and R. Venkataraman https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1526100x/2022/30/5

Srivastava, P., Reddy, M.K. Anthr. Sci. 1, 337–338 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44177-022-00026-0

Mishra, T.K., Gupta, B., Panda, P.K. (2022). In: Sahana, M., Areendran, G., Raj, K. (eds) Conservation, Management and Monitoring of Forest Resources in India. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98233-1_18