The study, published on October 12th in Nature, introduces the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology: the first, universal, comprehensive typology of Earth’s ecosystems which builds on and complements a number of established standards and datasets on nature, many of them created by IUCN, which make it possible for decision-makers to prioritise, implement and measure conservation actions to expand protected areas, sustain ecosystems and prevent species extinction. The research, which was led by CEM members, Professor David Keith, Professor Emily Nicholson, CEM Chair, Angela Andrade and Professor Richard Kingsford from UNSW’s Centre for Ecosystem Science, along with a global team of scientists allows us to understand broad global patterns, including the transformation of ecosystems. This will serve as a powerful tool for policymakers and industries, governments and NGO’s to plan their initiatives in full context by informing how decisions on ecosystem protection and restoration efforts can achieve maximum conservation benefit, and where development infrastructure is best placed to minimise impact.

The upcoming 108^th IUCN Council meeting will be held in Abu Dhabi on January 17, 18 and 19^th, 2023 which will have the presence of IUCN President Razan Al Mubarak and several special guests. Prior to the Council meeting, there will be an all-commissions meeting with the purpose of bringing together the seven commissions around a series of critical issues that need to be addressed, such as education and communication, environmental, climate, economic and social policy, ecosystem management, species survival, environmental law and protected areas to address the transformative change that is needed curb biodiversity and climate crisis. The meeting will bring together listening sessions, dialogue, debates and the latest scientific knowledge to help us identify what are the critical gaps, where are there new avenues of work and how to reimagine how we do conservation through a 20-year vision.

Asia is one of our most active regions with almost 35% of all CEM members belonging to countries in the continent and over 400 members being from India, including Vice Chair for Asia, Shalini Dhyani and South Asia Regional Chair, Deepu Sivadas, who have been extremely active during the past few years developing initiatives in the region. For this reason, we have decided to host our 54^th Steering Committee in Thrissur, India, during March 12, 13 and 14^th along with a 2-day workshop as a way to strengthen the involvement of Asia members and young professionals in the commission. We will be having talks, presentations, discussions and networking, where we will discuss some of the most relevant topics in the region, such as the Global Ecosystem Typology and the Red List of Ecosystems, young professionals, regional forest ecosystems, mangroves, agro-ecosystems, marine ecosystems, ecosystem governance, restoration, and protected area management among others. We are excited to have the presence of all CEM SC members as well as Stewart Maginnis, CEM’s focal point at Secretariat, David Keith and Emily Nicholson, Emmanuelle Cohen, as well as several regional group leaders and young professionals.

In October, Red List of Ecosystems lead and co-lead David Keith and Emily Nicholson, along with Stewart Magginnis, Marcos Valderrabano, and Richard Kingsford and Angela Andrade had the opportunity to come together in Cambridge, UK to work on Resolution 061, which establishes a partnership and further development of the Global Ecosystem Typology and Red List of Ecosystems. This initiative, mentioned above in the CEM Highlights, has been considered as one of the priority projects to be developed jointly between the commission and the secretariat. The meeting was extremely fruitful and it was an important stepping stone for the development of a first framework and for defining priorities for potential fundraising. This work is highly relevant for decision-making worldwide and for a better understanding of the state and interaction between ecosystems on a global scale.

Last week, during COP15 held in Montreal, Canada, the Restoration Day took place with the participation of Cara Nelson and the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) team, where they launched the second edition of the Restoration Standards of Practice, where several CEM members were involved. This groundbreaking publication provides updated and expanded guidance on the practice of ecological restoration, clarifies the breadth of ecological restoration and allied environmental repair activities, and includes ideas and input from a diverse international group of restoration scientists and practitioners. This second edition builds on the first edition of the Standards, which was released December 12, 2016 at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 13^th Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico. To watch the full conference, click here.

Several members of the CEM’s Impact Mitigation and Ecological Compensation Thematic Group (IMEC) are presenting at several events on Nature Positive at CoP15. The Nature Positive Working Group, led by Mark Johnston, released a summary of its current work focused on a draft paper: Nature Positive for business: developing a common approach. The work has drawn on a series of workshops with input from over 60 contributors, and aims to complement the IUCN’s Working Paper on Nature Positive by presenting key principles and actions to underpin business alignment with Nature Positive.

Watch this and all past events at COP here.

The NbS Youth Coalition has recently published a blog 'NbS Ahead of COP15: Where are We Now?', summarising their recent activities and views on the development of NbS this year, including UNEA and COP27 decisions, Nature+, and whether the development aligns with the demands in their Global Youth Statement.

The Coalition is a joint initiative by the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (CBD Youth Constituency), Youth4Nature, and YOUNGO (UNFCCC Youth Constituency), and has collaborated with IUCN in various events in the past two years. For any questions, please reach out to Cathy Yitong Li.

Angela Andrade, along with other experts participated in the event titled The New Landscape of Systemic Risk and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15. event explored the challenges and opportunities for understanding, managing and reducing systemic risk in a world that has been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the triple planetary emergency, especially biodiversity loss.

Watch this and all past events at COP here.

Last October, the Forest Specialist Group launched their thematic webinar series with their first session titled Intact Forests: Safeguarding planetary processes where the group advocated for intact forests and the essential ecosystem services they provide by affording strict protection to all remaining IFLs for developing ecosystem-based practices of sustainable forest management in commercial forests and plantations. The upcoming webinars will be announced in early 2023.

At the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (COP14) took place in a hybrid format in Wuhan, China, and in Geneva, Switzerland, where we had the opportunity to launch the latest CEM publication titled Wetlands and People at Risk. This 14-study case publication attempts to raise awareness on the relevance of wetland systems and their current impacts and threats in different regions of the world. It aims at describing the status, challenges and loss of wetlands related to conflicts between anthropic activities and natural ecosystem services fundamental for people’s livelihoods. It compiles 14 case studies from different regions in the world and wetlands typologies, including terrestrial, riverine, estuaries, marine coastal wetlands but also island wetlands. This is the result of collective collaboration led by the Wetland Specialist Group, and edited by Claudio Baigún, Birguy Lamizana and Priscila Minotti.

The Routledge Rewilding handbook was published on 30^th November and includes contributions from a number of CEM members including Chair, Angela Andrade, Cara Nelson, Liette Vasseur, Yue Cao, and Adam Eagle, and was edited by a team from the Rewilding Thematic Group - Sally Hawkins, Ian Convery, Steve Carver & Rene Beyers. The publication addresses rewilding as a rapidly emerging area of conservation and has often been defined and used in a variety of different ways (both temporally and spatially). The handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory, and current practices of rewilding, and is organised into four sections to reflect key areas of rewilding theory, practice, and debate: the evolution of rewilding, theoretical and practical underpinnings, applications and impacts, and the ethics and philosophy of rewilding. Drawing on a range of international case studies the handbook addresses many of the key issues and challenges familiar to CEM members, including land acquisition and longer-term planning, transitioning from restoration (human-led, nature enabled) to rewilding (nature-led, human enabled), and the role of political and social transformational change.

Access the full book here.

A session on “The link between Ecosystem Services and Nature-based Solutions for more resilient society and nature”, was organized by the CEM NbS TG leads, and took place in Heraklion, Greece, on October 11^th, at the ESP Conference. Twelve presentations and a rich discussion took place, including several case-studies using the NbS Global Standard as part of their research framework.

The podcast is an initiative led by the regional Young Professional Network, and represents a space dedicated to sharing the experience of the YPN in their different fields of expertise, their story in environmental sciences and the scholarships (or funding) that boosted their professional growth, to inspire future generations to achieve its potential. The first episode was recorded in 2022 on the “Governance for ecosystem-based adaptation” book where Rocío Córdoba-Muñoz (CEM regional coordinator) is co-author. One of the main messages was to highlight biodiversity and ecosystem services as an essential issue for adaptation to climate change. The podcast will be launched early 2023 and will be shared on CEM’s social media channels.

Thanks to the invitation of the coordinator of the initiative of the Celebration of the day of protected and conserved areas as well as the recommendation of Dr. Bernal Herrera, on August 17^th, CEM young professionals of the region such as Oswaldo Amarillas, co-chair for Meso, Central America and the Caribbean participated in a training module addressing how NbS can become important conservation elements in protected areas in Latin America.

Publication link: https://fb.watch/g_hLqKvfs8/

Thanks to the invitation of the coordinator of the initiative of the Celebration of the day of protected and conserved areas as well as the recommendation of Dr. Bernal Herrera, on August 17^th, CEM young professionals of the region such as Oswaldo Amarillas, co-chair for Meso, Central America and the Caribbean participated in a training module addressing how NbS can become important conservation elements in protected areas in Latin America.

Publication link: https://fb.watch/g_hLqKvfs8/

The CEM regional chair for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Rocío Cordoba, recently participated in two meetings of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Project: “Altiplano Resiliente” (Guatemala). This Committee is formed by members of Academia, Guatemala Government, Research Institutions, and NGO on forestry and indigenous people among others. The objective of the project is to reduce the impact of climate change on the hydrological cycle of the target basins to increase the resilience of the ecosystem and the population to climate change.

SERT co-Lead Manuela Ruiz along with Doris Cordero, CEM Regional Chair for South America, co-hosted a spanish-speaking webinar focused on critiquing and clarifying the relevance of resilience and transformation concepts for South America. Speakers included Armando Valdés-Velásquez, Robert Hofstede, María del Rosario Ortiz, and Juan Carlos Rocha. The aim was to begin enunciating a regional vision of how social-ecological systems thinking might help alleviate the climate, biodiversity, human vulnerability, and other crises. Peter Wells and Carolina Carvalho hosted the second Blockchains and Conservation webinar, focusing on the Biodiversity Oracle Project (Tony Lai), with additional contributions by IUCN Secretariat’s Blockchain Interest Group (Leander Raes) and the Porini Foundation (Roman Eyholzer).

IMEC also hosted its final webinar for 2022 on Lessons learned and recommendations for accessing private financing to deliver biodiversity gains from habitat banks in Colombia and Brazil. The webinar featured Mariana Sarmiento, the founder of TERRASOS, an innovative start-up that has led the way in Colombia, and Andréia de Mello Martins from FUNBIO in Brazil, presenting their non-profit model, a conservation trust fund. The recording (as well as all past webinars) can be viewed here.

SERT member Steve Moddemeyer chairs the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Applied Research Topics.  The committee prepared two "rapid consensus" reports: Resilience for Compounding and Cascading Events (2022) and Equitable and Resilient Infrastructure Investments (2022). The authors argue that the time for thinking of one-off events is past –now multiple disasters befall vulnerable populations before they recover from the previous event. The reports ask key questions designed to spur new applied research.

SERT member Professor Jeffrey Sayer recently published “Performance auditing to assess the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia,” in the journal Sustainability. The paper demonstrates how a country could assess the effectiveness of its governance arrangement as a way of ensuring progress on implementing SDGs, and hence improve the likelihood of achieving them by 2030. This contrasts with countries with limited resources and data availability monitoring all 169 targets and 242 indicators.

SERT member Ahjond Garmestani gave an invited seminar at Utrecht University on “Resilience governance of social-ecological systems”. He also co-authored a corresponding piece in the Utrecht Law Review, “Adaptive governance of river deltas under accelerating environmental change.” Utrecht Law Review 18: 30-50. The paper was part of a larger special issue focused on managing responsibilities for climate change risks.

SERT member, Professor Bryan Jenkins recently published several papers including Methods of Assessment and Sustainability for the EIANZ 2022 Impact Assessment Symposium, held in Adelaide, Australia. The paper describes four methods for sustainability analysis based on Holling’s adaptive cycle: impact assessment of the exploitation phase, cumulative assessment for the accumulation phase, resilience assessment for the disturbance phase, and recovery assessment for the reorganisation phase. The cases illustrate the need for assessments of transitions to sustainability led by government with industry and community engagement.

Jenkins, B.R. (2022) Science and Policy Delay leading to Loss of Natural Capital: Case Study of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere was recently published in the Australasian Journal of Water Resources. The paper analyses the sources of science and policy delay in developing environmental interventions to address overallocation of groundwater and water quality degradation in a coastal lake. The analysis highlighted the length of time required to collect the science and to formulate and implement policy responses. It also identified delays due to scientific uncertainty, scientific controversies, disregarding science, decision processes and response time of the natural system. The delays enabled development beyond sustainability limits to occur and may have permanently compromised the ability to implement interventions for lake recovery.

Read the paper here.

And Jenkins, B.R. (2022) Emerging European Developments in Impact Assessment, EIANZ Annual Conference: Shaping the Future of the Environment Profession, Townsville, 26-28 October 2022. The paper describes two significant changes in project impact assessment. One is the introduction of “environmental outcome reports” in the UK to replace environmental impact assessments. Projects are evaluated against specified environmental outcomes related to the government’s environmental improvement plan. The second is the EU’s “taxonomies of sustainable investments”. To facilitate sustainable investment, projects must ensure material positive contributions to at least one sustainability goal and avoid negative contributions to other sustainability goals.

Piralizefrehei, A., Kolahi, M. & Fisher, J. (2022). Ecological-environmental challenges and restoration of aquatic ecosystems of the Middle-Eastern. Scientific Reports 12, 17229.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21465-0

Zefrehei, A. R. P., Kolahi, M., & Fisher, J. (2022). Modeling Wetland Restoration Scenarios in Gavkhooni International Wetland. Restoration Ecology, e13721.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rec.13721

Pirali Zefrehei, A.R., Kolahi, M. & Fisher, J. (2022). Evaluation of Zayandehroud basin health in the Iranian plateau. Aquatic Sciences 84, 64.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00027-022-00896-x

European Commission, Directorate General for International Partnerships. Luna Rodríguez, M., Villate Rivera, R., Nature-based solutions in the NDCs of Latin American and Caribbean countries: classification of commitments for climate action, (Series of Technical Documents EUROCLIMA+ n.17), EUROCLIMA+ Programme, Brussels, 2022. DOI: 10.2841/236987