Strong SwedBio presence at the UN Biodiversity Conference

SwedBio enjoy a much-respected position within the works of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Staff from SwedBio and SRC were actively involved at the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CBD (CBD COP13) which took place in Cancún, Mexico, in December 2016.

The main theme for the meeting was mainstreaming biodiversity for well-being, and agreements were reached on actions to consider biodiversity in forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and tourism sectors and to achieve the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.

Maria Schultz, director of Policy and of the SwedBio programme at SRC and Pernilla Malmer, Senior Advisor at SwedBio, were part of the Swedish Delegation lead by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy. Maria Schultz co-chaired negotiations on capacity-building, and a capacity-building strategy was agreed upon for the Convention and its Protocols. Pernilla Malmer contributed in the negotiations to ensure a process for Free Prior and Informed Consent of indigenous peoples and local communities for accessing their traditional knowledge on biodiversity. Pernilla was also part of organizing and facilitating the “Múuch’tambal” Summit on Indigenous Experience: Traditional Knowledge, Biological and Cultural Diversity that delivered a declaration to the COP13 plenary.

Tristan Tyrrell from SwedBio presented a new SwedBio discussion paper, which demonstrates how the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets under the 2030 Agenda can be mutually supportive for effective implementation.

Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Centre researcher and International Environmental Law Adviser at SwedBio, organised as part of the Cancun Biodiversity Law and Governance Day a law seminar on how ecosystems and human rights are closely intertwined.

The COP also included the 5th Global Biodiversity Summit For Cities and Sub-national Governments. Professor Thomas Elmqvist contributed as chair and speaker in several sessions on global urbanisation trends and the role of nature-based solutions. Ellika Hermansson Török, Senior Adviser at Swedbio, presented Thrive, a mobile app on how to implement 60 nature-based solutions for the protection and sustainable use of natural assets in cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and Maria Schewenius, project manager and research coordinator at SRC, launched two new film projects – a VR experience and a documentary – produced in one of Brazil´s many favelas with co-funding from SwedBio.

2017-01-31