Story | 19 Apr, 2012

Linking IUCN science to global action

IUCN is ready to participate actively and share its most prominent knowledge products with an emerging global platform on biodiversity and its benefits (IPBES). Learn more on IUCN’s knowledge, tools and standards and discover how these can help IPBES linking science to action.

Photo: Christophe Iaïchouchen

Photo: IPBES

This week, during a side event of the UN meeting to shape IPBES, IUCN has presented some of its key knowledge products - existing or being developed - that have the potential to support the functions and work programme of IPBES. IUCN illustrates the power of the union of Secretariat, Commissions and Members, supported by additional partnerships, to generate and supply knowledge and experience for IPBES.

IUCN’s commitment
“IUCN is committed to work towards improved environmental governance at all levels and can provide specific products and services to IPBES that will help meet this challenge. Building a strong and early partnership with IUCN will allow the Platform to deliver early products, such as biodiversity assessments,” says Dr Cyrie Sendashonga, Head of the IUCN Delegation in Panama, IUCN Global Director of Programme and Policy Group.

The importance of building IPBES on existing initiatives
“While discussions on procedures and institutional arrangements are vital, it is important not to lose sight of the substantive work which the platform will be asked to perform,” adds Dr Jane Smart, IUCN Global Director of Biodiversity Conservation Group. “IUCN’s programme already includes several activities directly aligned with and relevant to the mandate of IPBES, which can be used as a basis for building on existing initiatives and assessments and is critical to the success of IPBES.”

IUCN’s assets for IPBES
"The mission of IUCN is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature, and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. IUCN’s mission, experience and expertise make us a key partner for IPBES,” says Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN Species Survival Commission. “IUCN’s six commissions, which engage 12,000 experts worldwide, play a particularly important role in knowledge and science generation, and are designed to facilitate collaboration and build specific products that could be extremely useful to IPBES.”

Click here to discover the most prominent IUCN knowledge products as the basis for a partnership to support the functions and work programme of IPBES. These include:

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™;
Protected Planet (including the World Database on Protected Areas - WDPA);
IUCN standard to identify areas of global biodiversity significance (“key biodiversity areas” - KBAs);
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems;
Global Invasive Species Database (GISD);
ECOLEX: the Gateway to Environmental Law;
IUCN Green List of well-managed Protected Areas;
IUCN Natural Resource Governance Framework;
IUCN Index of Human Dependency on Nature.

About IPBES
IPBES stands for Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES will be an interface between the scientific community and policy makers that aims to build capacity for and strengthen the use of science in policy making. IPBES will respond to requests for scientific information related to biodiversity and ecosystem services from governments, relevant UN Conventions, bodies and other relevant stakeholders. Governments have agreed that the four main functions of IPBES will be knowledge generation, options for assessment, policy relevant tools and capacity building.

For more information, please contact ipbes[at]iucn.org.

LINKS:

Framework for collaboration between IUCN and IPBES