The CEESP Executive Committee (ExCo) is composed of the CEESP Chair, Deputy Chair and Chairs of Themes and Working Groups. It meets at IUCN Headquarters twice a year. The last meeting was in October 2007.
The background documents for each ExCo meeting, containg the activity reports of the CEESP Working Groups and Themes, as well as other documents dicussed by ExCo, are available here, along with the minutes of the meetings.
October 2007
Background document
Minutes
May 2007
Background Document (also contains the report of the March 07 Steering Committee meeting in The Hague, in conjunction with a conference at the Peace Palace organized by the CEESP Environment and Security working group)
November 2006
Background Document (contains a detailed progress report of each Working Group)
Brief progress report on CEESP’s activities in 2006
The Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) deals with the interface between conservation and the crucial socio-economic and cultural concerns of human communities. In 2006, it maintained its focus on governance of natural resources; Community Conserved Areas (CCAs); poverty, food sovereignty and customary management of natural resources; and the environmental and social impact of extractive industries. Other areas of work—such as macro-economic policy and conservation, and security versus sustainability concerns—have also been prepared to bear fruit in 2007.
CEESP Themes and Working Groups provided technical assistance to regional learning networks (e.g., of co-management of Marine Protected Areas in West Africa and of Protected Areas with Indigenous Peoples in South East Asia), pilot field initiatives (e.g., for improved governance of natural forests in China, conflict resolution over natural resources in Afghanistan and protected areas in Madagascar), basic training institutions (e.g., for protected area managers and Community Conserved Areas in West Africa) and for policy development (e.g., about the IUCN new Protected Area Guidelines).
CEESP continued strengthening traditional natural resource management institutions in Iran, Afghanistan and Morocco, supported policy reform on natural resource management in Iran, published a Policy Matters volume on Poverty, Wealth and Conservation and a book on Nature-Based Tourism—a Draft International Covenant (which was distributed in the Governing Council of UNEP), and supported capacity building on the impacts of offshore oil development in West and East Africa (e.g. by organizing training workshops or developing maps of overlapping offshore oil exploration and sensitive marine environments).
In collaboration with WCPA, CEESP launched five regional surveys of Community Conserved Areas, and in collaboration with the IUCN Office for Europe, it began participatory action research initiatives on governance of biodiversity in 9 countries.
CEESP members combined fact-finding and advocacy about mining, environment and human rights in the Philippines and provided time-sensitive field support for a rapid environmental assessment of war-related oil spill in Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean. They also continued planning a major World Gathering of Nomadic Pastoralists in collaboration with the Government and civil society in Spain and the UNDP and UNCCD Secretariat for the second half of 2007.
During 2006, the Chair of CEESP was invited to deliver a number of keynote speeches, including for the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity (a group that includes all major Foundations in North America that support the conservation of biological diversity) and to the Central American Congress of Protected Areas. |
