Protecting Europe’s veteran tree hoverflies – IUCN SOS

This paper, produced in 2023, provides recommendations on implementing Target 15(a), especially the way governments can take legal, administrative, or policy measures to:

1) Encourage and enable businesses to regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity; and

2) Require all large, and transnational companies and financial institutions do so, including along their operations, supply and value chains, and portfolios. The paper also contains information, resources and capacity-building opportunities, recommendations for businesses to act now on assessment and disclosure, and case studies of government policies and business action on disclosure. The paper focuses on paragraph 15(a) as the most urgent starting point to ensure business and financial institutions are assessing and disclosing nature-related risks, dependencies, and impacts, and that this information is included in all decision-making by the private sector, finance, and governments.

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.

As the global coverage of protected areas increases, it is becoming more important to ensure that today's managers have the necessary qualifications and skills to effectively manage protected areas. This publication defines all the possible skills, knowledge and personal qualities required by people working in protected areas around the world. It is an ideal reference and starting point for managers and human resource professionals to plan and manage staffing of protected areas, for educators to identify and meet capacity needs, and for individuals to assess and develop their own skills. 

The Darwin Initiative is a UK government grants scheme that helps conserve biodiversity and support the communities that live alongside it through locally led projects worldwide. It is one of the Biodiversity Challenge Funds (BCFs) – the collective name for three of the UK Government’s competitive grants that also includes the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and Darwin Plus, aimed at conserving biodiversity and safeguarding the environment for local people.

Successful Darwin Initiative projects are likely to include:

• delivering outputs that will achieve both biodiversity conservation and multidimensional poverty reduction
• demonstrated an understanding of GESI within their context, and effectively reflected this in their approach to deliver sustained outcomes
• enhancing the capability and capacity of national and local partners and stakeholders, to help ensure a project’s long-term legacy
• strengthening, promotion and use of evidence to inform and scale the action
• the implementation of a novel or significantly improved approach
• scalable approaches that have the potential to deliver greater impact

Since 1993, the Darwin Initiative has awarded over £230m to more than 1,275 projects across 159 countries.

The Vulture Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission gathers and collates data on historical and current incidents of wildlife poisoning to assess the scope and impact of this threat to vultures and other scavenging birds and wildlife on the African continent. The Database is accompanied by a map of poisoning incidents in Africa. A  webform and a data submission template have been designed to facilitate simple uploading of records of poisoning incidents.

These guidelines offer an approach for developing a corporate-level biodiversity strategic plan, including measurable goals and objectives and a set of core linked  indicators, that will allow companies to measure their biodiversity performance across their operations. The Guidelines can be used by any company in any sector that has impacts and dependencies on biodiversity, whether large or small, national or multinational. They are aimed at sustainability teams, managers and other company staff whose roles include strategic planning and reporting related to biodiversity. The focus is on a full-cycle, results-based management approach (not just risk analyses, goal setting or indicator development), since assessing pressures on biodiversity, and planning and developing measurable goals, are key prerequisites for monitoring. They also explain how, by choosing and using appropriate core indicators and building internal capacity and partnerships, companies can aggregate and use biodiversity data at the corporate level in a meaningful way.

BIOFIN was initiated ten years ago at CBD COP 11 by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the European Commission in response to the urgent global need to divert more finance from all possible sources towards global and national biodiversity goals. BIOFIN demonstrates how nature-positive economies can work for people and the planet. Now present in 40 countries, BIOFIN is working with governments, civil-society, vulnerable communities, and the private sector to catalyse investments in nature protect and promote biodiversity. The BIOFIN Report: How Can Biodiversity Finance Plans Support NBSAPs? assists countries to develop, update, and implement national Biodiversity Finance Plans (BFPs) in support of their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).

BIOFIN does not provide funds directly. However, BIOFIN has partnered with several other organisations to set up the Finance Resources for Biodiversity (FIRE) platform to collate funding sources for all types of biodiversity projects, including for species. Over 300 funding opportunities for biodiversity conservation, both public and private, are listed. FIRE functions as a one-stop-shop, where a project leader can find a multitude of different opportunities matching specific criteria (country, range of funding, type of entity, etc.). Sources can be sorted using filters. Within the “ecosystems” filter there is an option to select Wildlife / Endangered Species.

How to use

Information on BIOFIN can be accessed at: https://www.biofin.org/

The BIOFIN brochure can be downloaded at: https://www.biofin.org/knowledge-product/biofin-brochure-0

The Report: How Can Biodiversity Finance Plans Support NBSAPs? can be downloaded at: https://www.biofin.org/knowledge-product/how-can-biodiversity-finance-plans-support-nbsaps

The FIRE platform can be accessed at: https://fire.biofin.org/

To obtain information on funding resources for species use the link:  https://fire.biofin.org/?ecosystems=Wildlife++Endangered+Species&name=

The Standard represents IUCN’s policy objectives with respect to indigenous peoples. It contains eight policy objectives for projects undertaken or supported by IUCN to support indigenous peoples and promote their role in conservation and management of sustainable resources.

The purpose of this Standard is to ensure that IUCN projects anticipate and avoid negative impacts on indigenous peoples or to minimise and/or compensate for impacts; take all rights and needs of indigenous peoples fully into account in project planning and implementation; and ensure that their customs, cultural and spiritual values, and perspectives on the environment are included.

Anthropogenic ocean noise is identified as one of the priority threats in the Strategic Plan of the IWC Conservation Committee. In 2018, the IWC agreed a Resolution that recognised the increasing concern over ocean noise, and clarified next steps to better understand and manage the threat. In 2022 the IWC endorsed a Workplan on Anthropogenic Ocean Noise. The Scientific Committee is also undertaking research on the impact of noise on cetaceans, and the effectiveness of different approaches to reduce exposure.

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.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, provides a framework for the effective implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) through four goals and 23 targets. Target 3 (known as the ‘30×30 target’) calls on Parties to conserve at least 30% of terrestrial, inland waters, and coastal and marine areas by 2030. These guidelines are designed to promote good practices relating to identifying, reporting, monitoring and strengthening OECMs. They are intended for use by a wide range of rightsholders and stakeholders to promote understanding of whether a site meets the CBD criteria for identifying an OECM, how to report OECM data at the national and global levels, and how to monitor and strengthen OECMs.

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.