Empowering Europe’s youth to protect pollinators and address biodiversity threats – IUCN SOS

The (PCCB) is the convening authority for capacity-building matters under the UNFCCC (UN Climate Change). This toolkit to assess capacity building gaps and needs to implement the Paris Agreement was developed as a resource for developing country officials and partners in the assessment of relevant capacity needs and gaps. This capacity assessment toolkit presents an overview of tools that support the assessment of capacity needed to address climate change.

It identifies key points and steps involved in the assessment process from design to evaluation, and is supported by case studies. It also  includes examples of approaches that have been successfully adopted as well as links to additional resources that may be accessed via the UNFCCC capacity building portal and other online sources.

The FairWild Foundation’s mission is to enable transformation of natural resource management and business practices to be ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable along the value chains of wild-collected products. The FairWild Standard

includes principles and guidance for use throughout these value chains. Together with its system of certification, it provides assurance of ethical and responsible practices across three dimensions of sustainability – ecological, socio-cultural, and business. The FairWild Standard 3.0 contains 7 Principles and 24 Criteria. Adherence to the FairWild Principles ensures that businesses in value chains for wild harvest ingredients act ethically and sustainably and make a positive contribution to the conservation of biodiversity. The FairWild Standard Performance Indicators outline the factors that contribute to the risk of unsustainable wild collection of target species.

This document was produced by the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in 2016. It provides guidance on enhancing the positive and minimizing the negative impacts on biodiversity of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, based on recent literature, case studies, and experience.

Section I presents the main principles of enhancing positive and reducing negative impacts of climate change adaptation activities on biodiversity. Section II provides guidance on enhancing positive and minimizing negative impacts of climate change adaptation activities, with specific examples from different sectors and ecosystems. Section III provides examples of tools to enhance the benefits and reduce the negative impacts of mitigation on biodiversity, with references to other reports where additional information can be found.

UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) is an intergovernmental programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves is an interactive network of sites of excellence that foster harmony between people and nature for sustainable development, respect for cultural values, and society’s ability to cope with change. There are 748 biosphere reserves in 134 countries, including 23 transboundary sites. Sites can be proposed by all Member States and Associate Members of UNESCO. Biosphere reserves are nominated by national governments and designated under the intergovernmental MAB Programme following the decisions of the MAB International Coordinating Council.

How to use

To obtain further information on the MAB programme and existing MAB sites, or to download the  Requirements and Nomination forms, visit: https://en.unesco.org/biosphere

In 2021, IUCN launched the IUCN Flagship Report Series, to help demonstrate the importance of conserving nature for human well-being and all life on Earth. This report, the second in the series, focuses on agriculture and nature. The interactions, synergies, and tradeoffs between the two sit at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which calls for ending hunger and ensuring food security while also mandating the protection and restoration of nature. Whether the two can be achieved simultaneously, and if so how, are crucial questions for humanity and our planet. IUCN therefore explores the positive and negative relationships between agriculture and nature conservation and mobilises new modelling approaches to examine both imperatives within a range of realistic policies.

This tool (i) supports the decision-making process when establishing and implementing transboundary conservation initiatives; (ii) minimizes the risks of the process; (iii) enables planners to assess the feasibility of design and implementation of transboundary conservation measures. Version 2.0 was released by IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group in June 2020.

How to use

For further details and to access the tool:

https://www.iucn.org/news/world-commission-protected-areas/202006/version-20-diagnostic-tool-transboundary-conservation-planners-released

GBIF is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world’s governments. It provides open access to data on all types of life on Earth. GBIF provides data-holding institutions around the world with common standards, best practices and open-source tools enabling them to share information on species. The data derive from many sources, from museum specimens collected in the 18th and 19th centuries to DNA barcodes and citizen science smartphone photos.

The network collates these diverse data sources through data standards, including Darwin Core, which forms the basis for most of GBIF’s index of hundreds of millions of species occurrence records. Publishers provide open access to their datasets using machine-readable Creative Commons licence designations, allowing scientists, researchers, and others to apply the data.

This is a / EBSAs are / a CBD initiative to identify marine areas that serve important purposes in supporting the healthy functioning of oceans and the services they provide. EBSAs are identified according to seven criteria. Selection of EBSAs and conservation and management measures is a matter for States and competent intergovernmental organizations, in accordance with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

How to use

• To obtain search the global map of EBSAs: https://www.cbd.int/ebsa/
• For further details of the EBSA criteria: int/doc/meetings/mar/ebsaws-2014-01/other/ebsaws-2014-01-azores-brochure-en.pdf

Small-scale fisheries provide food security, livelihoods and income to millions of people but their management still presents a challenge to managers and other stakeholders due to problems in gathering suitable information and its incorporation in fisheries policy. Fishers are a key source of knowledge for assessment of both extractive capacity and value in small-scale fisheries, in addition to providing a broad array of cultural knowledge. The increasing recognition of the value of incorporating traditional fishing knowledge in freshwater, riverine, lacustrine and coastal and marine fisheries management is now evident in international conventions and published literature. The purpose of these guidelines is to make it easier for users to recognise and include fishers’ knowledge as an important data stream in resource management. The report includes details on the breadth of knowledge that can be gathered, how it can be gathered, and how this information can be applied to support sustainable fisheries policy and broader applications in society. It contains case studies from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the Pacific.

The Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Practical Guide to Responsible Sourcing of Goods and Services outlines standard procurement steps to appropriate RBA tools and resources, to help give buyers confidence the products that they procure from RBA members are made in socially and environmentally responsible ways.

This Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy reaffirms and further strengthens IUCN’s commitment to realising gender equality and women’s rights and empowerment and puts into place requirements for embedding a gender-responsive approach into its Programme and project portfolio. Another publication Gender equality for greener and bluer futures: why women’s leadership matters for realising environmental goals includes new IUCN data on the number of women leading environmental ministries, compared with previous data. It also highlights data on why gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential for global goals on achieving an inclusive and sustainable future.

Connectivity conservation is essential for managing healthy ecosystems, conserving biodiversity and adapting to climate change across all biomes and spatial scales. Well-connected ecosystems support a diversity of ecological functions such as migration, hydrology, nutrient cycling, pollination, seed dispersal, food security, climate resilience and disease resistance. These Guidelines are based on the best available science and practice for maintaining, enhancing and restoring ecological connectivity among and between protected areas, other effective areas based conservation measures (OECMs) and other intact ecosystems. For the first time, this publication introduces a common definition and recommends formal recognition of ecological corridors to serve as critical building blocks of ecological networks in conjunction with protected areas and OECMs. Furthermore, these Guidelines also include 25 case studies that demonstrate current approaches to conserving ecological connectivity and ecological networks for different ecosystems and species, and at different spatial and temporal scales.