On 14 November 2023, a special event was held to mark the 75th anniversary of IUCN. Co-organised by IUCN and France, the commemorations were held at the Castle of Fontainebleau – the prestigious setting where the Union was founded in 1948. The event included speeches from several IUCN staff members as well as from newly appointed General Director, Grethel Aguilar and IUCN President, Razan Al Mubarak. Razan highlighted the achievements of nearly seven decades of work and emphasized the need to continue furthering the work and collaborative efforts of the Union. She stated that “While the urgency to address environmental challenges has never been greater, we are buoyed by a wave of positive developments. The emergence of global and regional environmental agreements, responsible business practices, financial incentives for nature, and advanced monitoring technologies are beacons of hope, guiding us towards a more sustainable and prosperous future.”

On December 3rd, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) hosted the Earth Information Day 2023 which provided a space for dialogues and exchanging information on the state of the global climate system and developments in systematic observation. The productive panel included a number of international speakers, including CEM Chair, Angela Andrade who spoke on Ecosystem monitoring and interlinkages between climate and the biodiversity crisis.

The IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (GET), developed by IUCN and CEM, was formally recommended for adoption into the international Family of Statistical Classifications in a significant decision by the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Statistical Classifications' during its meeting held in New York from October 24-27.

 

As the central coordination body responsible for international statistical classifications under the purview of the UN Statistics Division, the UNCEISC convenes meetings to discuss and make decisions regarding the adoption and revision of international statistical classifications. During the meeting, Andrew Hancock, Committee Chair of UNCEISC, highlighted the numerous strengths of the GET, including its solid scientific foundation, comprehensive scope, wide range of current applications (including the statistical framework SEEA Ecosystem Accounting), clearly defined statistical units, hierarchical classification, conceptual mutual exclusiveness, relationships and crosswalks to related frameworks, clear custodianship, and robust maintenance and implementation plan.

 

With unanimous agreement, the Committee officially recommended the GET for adoption as an international statistical classification. The recommendation will now go forward early next year to the United Nations Statistical Commission to decide on formal adoption. This decision marks another significant milestone in firmly establishing the GET as the primary global typology for ecosystems.

The Convention on Biological Diversity held the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in Nairobi last October, where highly relevant topics for IUCN and CEM where discussed, such as strategies on biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, where Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and Ecosystem-based Approaches play a crucial role. Some key messages of the event included the need to focus on priority areas for investment and urgently scale up, that there is a need for increasing funding, as well as strengthening monitoring and evaluation; Indigenous and Science-based knowledge should be mainstreamed; and robust standards such as IUCN’s NbS Global Standard should be employed to create impact while adhering to social and ecological safeguards.

Another CEM highlight at COP28 was the Nature-based Solutions to achieve Net-Zero Targets: from supply chains to carbon markets, hosted at the IUCN Pavilion, where Angela Andrade addressed how the NbS Standard can contribute to improve carbon market approaches and carbon accounting. She highlighted how frequently, carbon markets do not address biodiversity conservation and ecosystem integrity as well as sustainability accounting, and therefore, in order to enhance these issues, it is fundamental to change the approach from co-benefits to understanding carbon mitigation as part of ecosystem services, taking into account the role of ecosystems, beyond carbon storage at expense of other ecosystem services. She strongly advised that it is necessary to address biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services from the design phase of carbon market projects as well as a need to target other greenhouse gasses besides carbon which also contribute to the climate crisis and ecosystem degradation.

In a panel hosted at the IUCN Pavilion, IUCN Commission Chairs came together to discuss how working together is fundamental to addressing climate and biodiversity outcomes through NbS. Angela touched on the relevance of the IUCN NbS Standard to address the concern of greenwashing, the safeguarding of indigenous communities and to tackle biodiversity conservation. She highlighted that the NbS standard is not a substitute or an excuse to delay the phasing out of fossil fuels in any way and instead, the NbS standard provides the scientific basis for addressing ecosystem based approaches for migration and loss and damage which encompasses ecosystems as a changing complex organism.

In a panel organized by CEM member Marcos Valderrabano where several participants including Angela Andrade shared their expertise on insights from the Red List of Ecosystems into mangrove conservation. The panel touched on the interlinkages between the climate and biodiversity crisis that are especially visible in mangrove ecosystems, which provide essential protection to coastal populations against increasingly strong storms, and sea level rise, and provide invaluable carbon stock with increasing recognition in the blue carbon discussions.

The session explored how ecosystem science and economic analysis can explore risk to mangrove ecosystems, and how those can inform future decisions that will help achieve both Climate and Nature commitments. The session also presented the results of the Red List of Mangrove Ecosystems, explored the repercussions of increased risk of collapse of mangroves, and explored avenues for integration into NDC and NBSAP to better understand the feedback loops in Mangrove ecosystems between climate, biodiversity, and economies.

 

Watch the full session here

Also on December 3rd, the IUCN Pavilion held a panel on the history and development of the Ecosystem-based Approach launched in 2009 and how Nature-based Solutions may serve as a tool to address the ecosystem crisis as a whole. During this panel, CEM Chair Angela Andrade shared the success and failures of almost 15 years of implementing the Ecosystem-based Approach framework. She highlighted how an ecosystem-based approach is fundamental to address the main components of adaptation in an integrated way, including biodiversity, communities, ecosystem services and the ecosystem as a whole complex system, to, from there, come up with solutions that address all the elements that an ecosystem encompasses.

 

She also addressed the lack of funding for ecosystem-based adaptation initiatives to address these challenges beyond mitigation and carbon compensation, and instead, highlighted the need to address these issues in a more holistic and comprehensive way to address issues such as biodiversity loss, land degradation, human health, food and security, among others, for which Nature-based Solutions can serve as a tool to address the conservation of all these elements as a whole.

CEM chair for Western Europe and lead for Rewilding TG, Professor Ian Convery recently returned from a trip to Australia where he presented at the 10th World Conference on Ecological Restoration, held in Darwin, and gave a keynote presentation at Biodiversity 23 conference in Perth. In Darwin, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) conference focused on the important, and often neglected connection between culture and nature, including the role of restoration in enhancing and rebuilding that connection. Ian ran a symposium on restoration and rewilding with colleagues from AECOM and the Western Australia Biodiversity Science Institute (WABSI) and presented a paper on restoration and rewilding co-authored with Cara Nelson. 

In Perth Ian gave a keynote to over 600 delegates at the Biodiversity Conference 2023, held at University of Western Australia. The conference focused on expanding collaboration across government and nongovernment sectors by co-developing solutions with Indigenous and local communities, learning from both Indigenous and western scientific knowledge. His keynote concerned rewilding’s long-term aims, integrating ecological and socio-cultural factors, as a means to unify the global, multidisciplinary field of rewilding. He presented a theory of change framework, developed with CEM RTG's Sally Hawkins as part of her PhD research, in order to assist practitioners in the planning and application of rewilding.

The Local Conference of Youth on Climate Change (LCOY) is a meeting space for youth interested in strengthening knowledge and action related to climate change at the national, regional, and local levels. This national conference which was held on September 28-30^th in Bogota, Colombia, focused on training, disseminating activities, establishing networks, and engaging in dialogue on the context of climate change at the territorial level.

 

The overall objective of the conference this year was to create a space for dialogue and construction open to youth and youth organizations from across Colombia, with the active participation of at least 50 individuals under the age of 35 and 5 youth organizations. This space allowed sharing visions, proposals, and calls related to climate action from both a local and global perspective, with the aim of contributing to progress in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and empowering youth to take climate action at different levels.

The conference, in its third edition, took place for the first time in person at the University of the Andes, with transmission and online participation in some spaces. Thanks to the support of the IUCN, this year we were able to bring two indigenous leaders from the Colombian Amazon to contribute to the construction of the event from the perspective of indigenous peoples and their ancestral knowledge, something crucial for combating the climate crisis.

Last October, several CEM members from Africa, in collaboration with the African Forest Forum AFF, organized the session "Building resilient forest-based livelihoods through sustainable ecosystem management approaches" at the Forest and livelihoods: Assessment, Research, and Engagement FLARE 2023 meeting, at CIFOR-ICRAF in Nairobi, Kenya. The session focused on ecosystems management tools and approaches to support functionality of forests with emphasis on the role of CEM on sustainable forest-based livelihoods including, Nature-based solutions, cultural practices and traditional knowledge, and the Red list of Ecosystems.

Between October 14 and 17, 2019, thanks to the efforts of CEM members Pamela Paes and Ana Julia Gómez, the 3rd Congress of Protected Areas of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAPLAC) took place, providing an opportunity to highlight the initiatives and people involved in the management of protected areas in the region to recognize the valuable regional work and emphasize, from a regional perspective and with the entire society, the importance of protected areas for people's well-being and sustainable development in the region.

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme has produced a new Virtual Peatland Pavilion, supported by UNEP’s Global Peatlands Initiative. This virtual structure contains diverse resources and interactive, immersive displays exploring peatlands around the world. The new content is housed in a beautiful 9-storey virtual structure inspired by the leaves of peat-forming Sphagnum bog mosses, with a peat core running through the centre and a glass entrance floor laid over a peat bog. Building on the success of previous virtual peatland pavilions built for COP26 and COP27, the latest offering is set in a desert environment to reflect its launch during COP28 in UAE, which was streamed live via the peatland cinema on Floor 9. The entrance floor features an interactive globe where you can immerse yourself in 360° views of peatlands around the world, and Floor 8 features ‘Sphagnum World’, the IUCN UK Peatland Programme digital guide to Sphagnum identification.

Critically, the pavilion highlights the importance of global peatlands for the many ecosystem services they provide for people and the planet, and as a key nature-based solution to climate change. The 3D environment is full of inspiring peatland materials from every continent, including videos on paludiculture and peatland restoration work, policy documents, sustainable finance initiatives and technical compendiums. The pavilion also showcases creative inspiration from peatlands including music, artwork displays and audiovisual explorations.

 

The virtual peatland pavilions are a global collaboration between the UN, states, NGOs, academia, practitioners, business communities and individuals. They have been created as a long-lasting resource and knowledge hub. Over the coming months, the latest pavilion will evolve as new content from across the global peatland community is added, so please do take a tour. Special thanks go to Richard Lindsay, the Peatland Programme’s Senior Research Advisor, who worked tirelessly to build this new virtual environment and interactive displays, as well as creating ‘Sphagnum World’.

On December 9th, in honor of International Mountain Day, the CEM South Asia region hosted the webinar, "In the Service of Humans and Vegetation: Wild Mushrooms of North West Himalaya of Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh” to discuss how mushrooms, the fruiting bodies of fungi, are essential decomposers in mountain ecosystems. They break down organic matter, such as fallen leaves and dead animals, returning nutrients to the soil and fueling the growth of plants. This nutrient cycling process is vital for maintaining the fertility and productivity of mountain soils. Their partnerships enhance plant nutrient uptake and water absorption, providing plants with a competitive edge in the harsh mountain environment, and contributing to soil stability and erosion control, further supporting the resilience of mountain ecosystems.

 

Mushrooms are not only crucial for the health of mountain ecosystems but also hold immense value for human well-being. Many species of mushrooms are edible and highly nutritious, providing essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. This was an opportunity to learn how these often-overlooked organisms play a crucial role in mountain ecosystems, influencing soil health, nutrient cycling, and the overall well-being of plants and animals.

On December 12th, CEM Forest Ecosystems Specialist Group’s lead and co-lead, Himlal Baral and Rajiv Kumar hosted the International Consultative Workshop on Role of Forestry, Agroforestry, And Land Restoration in Achieving Net Zero in the Asian Region. The primary objective of the workshop was to formulate a comprehensive roadmap or guideline document for assessing the pivotal role of forestry and agroforestry-based strategies in supporting national Net Zero Goals. Furthermore, the workshop aimed to identify challenges, hurdles, and roadblocks hindering the realization of mitigation potential from these sectors. It also sought to foster collaboration and partnerships among various organizations in Asia dedicated to these sectors.

During October, Adaptation Futures, an international conference dealing with the issues related to climate change and focusing mainly on adaptation was hosted in Montreal. One of the sessions entitled “Shaping the Future of Nature- based Solutions for Adaptation” organized by Parks Canada aimed to discuss pathways forward to fully realizing the potential of NbS for the climate crisis and other global concerns. During this session, Liette Vasseur (co-authored with Angela Andrade) presented on “Supporting climate change adaptation of social-ecological systems at risk of collapse through the use of Nature- based Solutions”. The session also highlighted the essential role of governance, equity, inclusion and diversity in planning and decision making of NbS.

This event was followed a couple of weeks later in another conference, where a workshop was organized by Conservation Ontario aiming to also underline the role of NbS in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The 2023 Latornell Conservation Symposium under the theme “Changing Climates: Our Watershed Moment” was held at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Vasseur (co-authored with Angela Andrade) presented the IUCN NbS Global Standard to open the workshop.

Warm congratulations to CEM Rewilding Thematic Group co-chair, Steve Carver, who has recently been promoted to Professor of Rewilding & Wilderness Science at University of Leeds. Well done Steve! 

In Latin America and the Caribbean, biodiversity and ecosystem conditions are declining due to combined pressures associated with habitat conversion and degradation, fragmentation, overexploitation, and climate change. The degradation and loss of biological diversity are mainly associated with land-use conversion and agricultural intensification; drainage and conversion of wetlands; urbanization and other new infrastructures; and resource extraction. These direct pressures are primarily linked to population growth, economic growth, governance challenges, and inequality.

Nature-based Solutions (SbN) have been identified as a tool that contributes to addressing social challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, among others. In this sense, the systematization of best practices associated with the implementation of SbN in the region is crucial to continue promoting comprehensive solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as other social challenges. For this reason, CEM is inviting researchers and practitioners in biodiversity conservation, restoration, and management in Latin America and the Caribbean to participate as authors of case studies in the region where SbN is applied. Case studies should emphasize the implementation of SbN to address socially relevant challenges in the region, such as climate change (i.e., mitigation and adaptation), disaster risk reduction, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation, as well as cases addressing the link between biodiversity and climate change.

 

If interested in submitting, visit here for more information.

The CEM Young Professional Network is currently seeking regionally distributed leadership and greater diversity within CEM YPN members across the regions to be part of the YPN Core Group. The core group will conduct young professional engagement as per the Commission on Ecosystem Management mandate to facilitate youth engagement along with the IUCN One programme.

 

This is an opportunity to work closely with the CEM Regional Chairs and lead regional engagement of YPs. The core group will facilitate efficient engagement and communication between relevant Technical Groups.

Last Thursday, December 14th, we had out last CEM Dialogue of 2023 on the new publication led by the lead and co-lead of the CEM Mountain Ecosystems TG, Omer Aijazi and Sejuti Basu. The webinar was hosted by 7 co-authors of the book and showcased case studies of working alongside local and indigenous communities in several countries, and discussed the importance of decolonizing the approach to conservation, where there has been a long history of negative impacts of these communities as a result of science and development projects. The session also emphasized on the need to turn towards a new, more collective, participatory and interdisciplinary approach that not only takes into account an economic growth, but also contributing to benefit the communities who inhabit the lands and protect the resources where these projects are being developed.

The latest publication on NbS discusses how the interconnected crises of climate change and biodiversity loss present existential threats to the planet and humanity. The World Economic Forum's 2022 Global Risk Report identifies biodiversity loss as one of the main global challenges, along with climate change. As rising temperatures lead to ecosystem degradation, nature's ability to regulate emissions becomes compromised. Global agreements, such as the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, emphasize the collective commitment to tackling these challenges. The corporate sector plays a significant role in the transition to a net-zero future, and is necessary to lead to a net-zero goal. For this, NbS is an effective framework for mitigating climate change and preserving biodiversity. However, concerns about the mischaracterization of NbS and the need for standardized methodologies and accounting practices are raised. The document emphasizes that NbS must be designed with a holistic objective of benefiting biodiversity and human well-being, as outlined by the United Nations Environment Assembly and the IUCN Global Standard for NbS. The private sector is encouraged to adopt net-zero and nature-positive targets, relying on NbS to achieve climate and biodiversity goals and contribute to societal objectives by 2050.

Ecosystems continue to decline with significant negative impacts on society. Businesses need to understand their impacts and  dependencies on nature, manage their nature-related risks and embed the value of nature into their decision making to identify and implement opportunities that contribute towards the nature-positive global goal. Achieving nature-positive requires collective action across sectors, value chains and landscapes. Fundamentally, nature-positive represents a systemic and transformative shift rather than ‘re-shaping’ of current practices. Utilising prioritization approaches can enable businesses to identify areas where they can have a material and meaningful  contribution from the outset as systemic and transformative change is adopted through the business.

Indigenous and Local communities are keepers of valuable environmental knowledge accumulated over generations. This knowledge is held individually and collectively, often orally transmitted and embodied. At least 25% of the world’s land area is owned, managed, used or inhabited by these groups, and such areas are degrading less quickly than others. Yet, despite abundant empirical evidence, Indigenous and Local communities struggle to have their voices meaningfully included in environmental governance. Much more work remains to be done on the integration of Indigenous and local knowledge within nature conservation. The latest CEM Publication, edited by CEM members Omer Aijazi and Sejuti Basu, CEM Mountain Ecosystems specialist group lead and co-lead, What can communities teach us? responds to this gap and the growing calls for decolonising the conservation movement for a more inclusive future for all of us.

IUCN Commissions are committed to improving our interaction and engagement with you, our members. To help inform how Commissions work, we urge you to please take part in the first of an annual member experience survey. Your valuable input will be used to improve and plan future Commission membership initiatives. The survey takes about ten minutes to complete the survey, and your valuable input will be used to improve and plan our future work to better support Commissions. Please note that your responses will be kept strictly confidential, combined with the rest of the respondents’, and will be reported as a group. Please find the survey here.