Biodiversity Sub-plenary Session: Forest Day

5 December 2010, Cancun Center, Conventions and Exhibitions, Boulevard Kukulcan, Cancún

The aim of this session at Forest Day 4 is to bring together a group of key experts and decision makers to identify and promote
synergies between efforts to safeguard biodiversity, tackle climate change, and implement sustainable forest management.
We will discuss achievements of the International Year of Biodiversity, and identify further opportunities for synergies in policy
and practice during the International Year of Forests in 2011 and towards Rio+20 in 2012.
Encouraging examples exist of the inclusion of biodiversity objectives in pilot and demonstration activities for Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), as well as in national climate change adaptation efforts.
The session will build on successful efforts at national level to conserve, restore and sustainably use forest biodiversity in
support of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and it will identify how the international policy framework could further
support such synergies.

A high level panel will address the following issues:
1. How are national governments mainstreaming biodiversity objectives into REDD+ pilot and demonstration activities?
2. How can countries harness the potential of forest biodiversity for climate change adaptation?
3. How can the international policy framework better support countries in their efforts to achieve biodiversity and climate
change synergies?
4. What opportunities for forest biodiversity lie ahead in the International Year of Forests 2011 and towards Rio +20 in 2012,
and how can we best use them?

Panelists:
• Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Minister of National Heritage, Ecuador (Very Good!!)
• Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action ( No Show)
• Jose Sarukhan, President, CONABIO, Mexico
• Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, TEBTEBBA (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education)

Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010: Dec.4th,Sat.

Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010
Agriculture is where climate change, food security, and development intersect!
Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, held in parallel to COP16, will bring agriculture sector adaptation and mitigation strategies to the forefront of the global climate treaty negotiations. It will demonstrate clearly that agriculture is where climate change, food security, and development intersect. It informs the climate change negotiations and advocates for a COP decision on a “work program for agriculture” — and at the same time looking beyond the negotiations.

Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010 will show how agricultural development can contribute to low emission futures, while adapting to climate change and enhancing supporting sustainable food security. The ensuing messages together with those of Forest Day 4 will be presented jointly at an official COP side event.

Last year’s Agriculture and Rural Development Day had increased the focus on the link between agriculture, food security and climate change, as well as forestry. This year we will build on that success by identifying policies and practical solutions to reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen global food security and rural development.

Planned 2010 themes
•Agricultural intensification as an REDD strategy
•Agricultural mitigation and carbon sequestration
•Adaptation for food security and development outcomes
•Capturing carbon finance, including through forestry, for agricultural development
•What scientific, technological, and methodological aspects need to be considered to advance agriculture’s contribution to mitigation and adaptation?

Monbiot.com » A Ghost Agreement-Biodiversity in Japan

Monbiot.com » A Ghost Agreement

A Ghost Agreement
Posted November 1, 2010 Everyone agrees that the new declaration on biodiversity is a triumph. Just one snag: it doesn’t appear to exist.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 2nd November 2010

“Countries join forces to save life on Earth”, the front page of the Independent told us. “Historic”, “a landmark”, a “much-needed morale booster”, the other papers chorused(1,2,3). The declaration agreed at the summit in Japan last week to protect the world’s wild species and wild places was proclaimed by almost everyone a great success. There’s only one problem: none of the journalists who made these claims has seen it.

I checked with as many of them as I could reach by phone: all they had read was a press release, which, though three pages long, is almost content-free(4). The reporters can’t be blamed for this: though it was approved on Friday, the declaration has still not been published. I’ve now pursued people on three continents to try to obtain it, without success. Having secured the headlines it wanted, the entire senior staff of the Convention on Biological Diversity has gone to ground: my calls and emails remain unanswered(5). The British government, which lavishly