Blogs

The UK Environmental Change Network, Natural History Museum and CEH are organising a conference 16-17 November 2010 - Beyond 2010: strategies for understanding and responding to long-term trends in UK biodiversity..../

/... The conference has speakers planned from a whole range of UK science/biodiversity institutions and aims to

1) consider current and likely future national requirements for biodiversity monitoring and research;

2) demonstrate the ways in which long-term studies have contributed to our understanding of key biodiversity-related issues;

3) illustrate through case-studies the challenges faced in improving the quality, reliability and efficiency of measurements; data processing, interoperability and analysis; and the communication of results;

4) explore opportunities to improve monitoring capability through recent developments in science, instrumentation, and public participation, and

5) consider the potential for synergies between programmes and future directions for this area of research. 

There is continuing interest in policy understanding of the international development of science - what it means in terms of international cooperation and identity, and how patterns will change in future.

Nature have just started an online Middle East site, partly in Arabic. Reflects continuing interest in the development of science in the region and in countries with majority Muslim populations.  I went a few weeks ago to the launch of a Royal Society project The Atlas of Islamic-World Science and Innovation which their science policy staff are pursuing over the next couple of years, looking at how science is developing in a range of case study countries.  The interest in some countries is in how they will invest their substantial resources in new science and technology - for all there is an interest in how the development of science changes the path of development. This moved with James Wilsdon from Demos, originating in the earlier Atlas of Ideas projects. 

This is also clearly linked in with ideas on public diplomacy - how collaboration and communication across national boundaries and outside formal diplomatic channels can aid engagement between different states.  We have seen this develop in the UK for museums with the idea of cultural diplomacy, and more recent expression in the idea of science diplomacy: the Royal Society again produced a report on this in early 2010, following a meeting in 2009.

A key date on the horizon for biodiversity targets is 2020, with discussion developing for COP 10 in Nagoya in a wide range of fora internationally.

EU discussion on a whole range of policy targets for 2020 has been underway for a while, with biodiversity part of the mix.

In January, the Commission produced an overview and options paper for the Council that identified the need for the baseline produced by EEA. This paper is worth reading as a statement of the current position, with gaps identified in implementation (of Natura 2000, for example), policy, knowledge and data, integration and funding.  There is a clearly stated need for research to support policy, and reference to the IPBES.  The paper also promotes the idea of the 2050 vision:

"Biodiversity and ecosystem services – the world's natural capital – are preserved, valued and, insofar as possible, restored for their intrinsic value and so that they can continue to support economic prosperity and human well-being as well as avert catastrophic changes linked to biodiversity loss."

In March, the Council agreed one of the options from the paper as the 2020 target for the EU:

"To halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, restore them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss."

This is the most demanding of four options identified in the original paper from the Commission. So we will now see the development of a new EU Biodiversity Strategy this year on the basis of the 2020 target.

To add to this, there were discussions last week on 13 July in the European Parliament Committee on Environment,
Public Health and Food Safety on EU policy and targets for biodiversity into the future.  The committee home page gives links to documents. This is about getting a Parliamentary resolution to put pressure on the Commission to adopt particular positions with respect to CBD in Nagoya and the development of 2020 targets - there is repeated emphasis on the
perceived lack of effectiveness of the EU policy approach.  The paper on EU strategic objectives probably gives the most information from the Committee perspective.

Just a reminder of the existence of Countdown 2010 - an IUCN-led international network of organisations focusing on IYB and biodiversity more broadly.  Good source of new information.

Summer edition of the UK Biodiversity news from Defra now available