The Royal Society yesterday published ‘People and the Planet‘, a report which marks the end of nearly two years of work by a group including both the British Ecological Society’s current President, Professor Georgina Mace FRS and a past-President of the Society, Professor Alastair Fitter FRS. Speaking to the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme yesterday morning, Professor Mace warned that we are eroding the earth’s vital support systems through over-consumption and unfettered economic growth and that as a consequence we are not doing a very poor job of ‘gardening the planet’.

The study examines the links between global population and consumption and the implications for our finite planet. The aim of the report is to provide policy guidance to decision makers and to inform interested members of the public. Yesterday’s publication led to very interesting coverage on the Guardian’s environment blog, with members of the working group, including the group’s chair, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sir John Sulston FRS, commentators and others offering their views on the content. Some of those commenting contended that the scientists were too negative in their assessment and that economic growth should not always be viewed as having negative consequences for the environment. One suggestion was that economic growth means that natural resources such as timber could be replaced with man-made materials for development purposes, so reducing environmental degradation. Another was that economic growth means technological and scientific advances, with humanity thereby innovating our way out of a crisis.

Aside from any external comment on the project’s conclusions, the overriding message of the study is that we must examine population growth and consumption patterns together and that it is the combination of these two factors that has an effect on the planet. The human population is set to reach 10 billion people, from the current seven billion, by the middle of this century. Over 1.3 billion people currently live in abject poverty, on less than $1.25 per day. It is clearly not desirable to see a world in which both the population increases and inequalities are exacerbated. Inequality must be addressed, people must be lifted out of poverty, but as their wealth and living standards increase, so too will the consumption of resources. Reducing consumption whilst also reducing inequalities and ensuring that those in poverty achieve an adequate living standard is a dilemma, and one which seems intractable.

Yet, speaking to the Today Programme yesterday morning, Sir John Sulston described tackling these pressures on the planet, what he characterised as ‘planning to flourish’, as ‘very simple’. Echoing the conclusions of the report he stated that we need to ‘dematerialise’ our economy, for example by investing in zero carbon forms of energy and by moving beyond GDP as a measure of economic growth to price in natural capital. In addition, tackling population growth will require countries to work together constructively, rather than the developed somehow lecturing the developing world in how to address birth rates. Contraception should be made available to those who want it in Africa, where two thirds of the anticipated growth in population is projected to occur, for example, but representatives of some African nations, such as Kenya, are requesting this, rather than this being imposed from outside.

Top priority is afforded to lifting people out of poverty, in the report’s conclusions. The international community is urged to address inequality through investment in education, family planning and economic development. The other recommendations are (to paraphrase):

- Most developed and developing economies must stabilise and reduce material consumption levels (de-coupling economic growth from environmental impacts and improving the efficiency of resource use, for example);
- Reproductive health and voluntary family planning programmes should be supported by political leadership and financial commitments;
- Population and the environment should not be considered separately. Demographic changes should be factored in to Rio +20 negotiations, for example;
- Governments should invest appropriately in urbanisation, for example supporting waste collection, which has the potential to reduce environmental impacts through allowing resource efficiencies;
- High quality primary and secondary education should be available for all young people;
- Governments should accelerate the development of a comprehensive wealth measure, including improving national natural asset accounting;
- Governments should collaborate to develop socio-economic systems and institutions not dependent on continued material consumption.

Natural and social scientists have an important role to play. The seventh recommendation calls for scientists to increase their research into the interactions between consumption, demographic changes and environmental impacts, providing policy-makers with the information they require in order to ensure that both the planet and the human population under pressure can continue not only to survive but also to thrive.

This week delegates from the United Nations have been participating in the second plenary meeting to establish an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Taking place in Panama City, Panama, from 16th – 21st April, the purpose of the meeting is to consider the draft work programme for the IPBES, the structure and function of subsidiary bodies that might be established under IPBES and to decide upon the geographical location of the secretariat.

The meeting is being chaired by the UK’s own Chief Scientific Adviser to Defra, Professor Sir Robert Watson. On the first day of the meeting, Professor Sir Watson presided over a decision to vote upon the location of the secretariat for IPBES, rather than to achieve this decision via consensus. This decision resulted in the five countries who had bid to host the secretariat delivering their pitches to delegates from the stage on Wednesday morning, day three of the meeting, a process described by one delegate as equiavelent to ‘American Idol’. Of the five bids, from the Republic of Korea, Kenya, Germany, France and India, the German bid came with the most financial backing. Elsa Nickel, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Protection and Nuclear Safety pledged $1.3 million US annually to the IPBES trust fund, plus $6.5 million US annually for capacity building activities and $850,000 US to support conferences, travel costs and studies.

In deciding upon the bids, delegates interviewed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin stressed the need for the basis to be whether the host country was biologically diverse and which had the greatest committment to biodiversity protection policies. The vote on the host country for the IPBES secretariat was held last night, with Germany finally selected as the successful candidate, beating the Republic Korea in the final round of a run-off vote with 47 votes to 43. In pitching to delegates, Elsa Nickel, stressed the advantage to IPBES of being co-located in Bonn, Germany, with 18 other UN organisations already present in the city.

There has been agreement on a number of matters. Text has been agreed on engaging ‘the scientific community and other knowledge holders’ in the work programme of IPBES. After a lengthy debate on whether technology transfer is an appropriate function for IPBES, delegates also agreed to text stating IPBES would ‘explore approaches to facilitating technology transfer and sharing in the context of assessment, knowledge generation and capacity building according to the work programme’.

Delegates are also currently discussing the functions of the IPBES in the context of one particular institutional arrangement proposed, so some consensus has been reached on the IPBES mode of operation. Two subsidiary bodies look set to be formed; a ‘Bureau’ consisting of a chair, four vice-chairs and an additional participant per UN region, making 10 participants in total. A ‘Multidisciplinary Scientific Panel’ has also been proposed, to consist of 25-35 members depending on how members are selected – currently a contentious issue between delegates. China, Argentina, Bolivia and others championed the deletion of ’scientific’, to provide the Panel with a broader remit. This move was opposed by the EU, Chile, Columbia and others but was eventually accepted by delegates.

Today, on the penultimate day of the meeting, it seems that a number of decisions still remain outstanding. Some delegates interviewed for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin last night expressed concern at the pace of the meeting, suggesting that negotiations on seemingly simple matters are becoming increasingly complex and that there is a need to prioritise. One issue that caused contention yesterday was around the proposals for the ‘Multidisciplinarity Expert Panel’ (MEP) with China blocking agreement on interim arrangements governing how many members would sit on the panel and how they would be selected. Professor Sir Watson made it clear to delegates yesterday that this issue would need to be resolved before others could be discussed. Negotiations have resumed today and will continue throughout tomorrow so it must be hoped that agreement can be reached to, in the words of the Eath Negotiations Bulletin, move the IPBES from ‘paper to platform’.

The final day of the Planet under Pressure conference finished with a call for scientists to engage with the Rio +20 summit and beyond, defining through science the economic, social and environmental consequences of policy decisions. Interdisciplinary research, robust and comprehensive science is needed to forecast more accurately the intensity and consequences of change at multiple scales, along with assessing the consequences of potential solutions. These were the words of Dr Wendy Watson-Wright, Assistant Director General, and Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, of UNESCO. Dr Watson-Wright reflected in these closing remarks many of the issues and suggestions that arose in discussion at the plenary and parallel sessions during the day.

The talks and sessions on Thursday focused on the way ahead to Rio + 20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, following discussions in previous days examining the challenges facing the planet and the innovative solutions that might exist to tackle these. A significant theme to emerge was the need for better links between science and policy, along with the need for integrated, interdisciplinary research to tackle interconnected problems. On at least two occassions, the concept of the economic, environmental and social elements within sustainable development being characterised as ‘pillars’, as is the norm, was challenged, as this separated these factors conceptually, when in fact they are highly connected to one another. There were also calls throughout the day for new partnerships between science, policy, industry and business, along with the need for social and natural scientists to collaborate with one another.

Addressing the conference by video link, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed Rio +20 as a major opportunity to develop the science-policy interface. This echoed comments at the conference earlier in the week by Yvo de Boer, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who called for greater dialologue between science, policy and the media and the need to find new platforms to facilitate these interactions.

Johan Rockström, Stockholm Resilience Centre, introduced the audience to Future Earth, of which he is co-chair and which he described as an ‘Apollo-type global endeavour’. Future Earth is envisaged as a ‘global platform for collaboration on Earth-system research for global sustainability’, a 10 – year programme that brings together bodies such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNESCO, the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the major funders of environmental research globally (the Belmont Forum). Future Earth will be launched at the Rio summit in June, with a new governance structure in place from January 2013. A possible outcome from Future Earth could be, Professor Rockström said, identification of the most pressing questions (and hopefully, solutions to these) facing humanity on global environmental challenges. The biggest intellectual contribution that Future Earth could make, Professor Rockström said, was in taking a bold step to integrate natural and social sciences in understanding these challenges.

There were calls from Professor Anne Glover, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Scottish Government and now Chief Scientific Adviser to the European Commission, for better regulation of financial markets, as the real drivers of policy decisions. Professor Glover said that society spends a great deal of money on funding research into climate change, for example, which then delivers evidence on the likely impacts of environmental change, with limited uncertaintly. Policy-makers looking at this evidence can see clearly that action to tackle climate change is needed but ‘markets are not moral’; markets instead see in melting permafrost and areas of drought opportunities for the exploitation of new resources and the opening up of new commercial opportunities. Economists, social scientists and political scientists need to consider how to develop creative models for regulation, to create a level playing field for business to allow them to behave sustainably. Without this, Professor Glover said, our investment in scientific evidence is wasted.

One of the most interesting discussions attended by the Policy Team focused on the concept of ‘planetary boundaries’. There have been calls for the Sustainable Development Goals, expected as an ouput from the Rio +20 meeting, to incoporate the concept of ‘planetary boundaries’, or environmental limits to growth. A speaker from Oxfam highlighted the need to consider ’social boundaries’ alongside the environment, making the important point that a socially, as well as an environmentally just space for humanity to occupy was required as an outcome of Rio. Again, there were calls for economics to be reformed fundamentally if planetary, and social, boundaries are to be respected, with discussion of new methods of measuring social progress and growth ‘beyond GDP’. Scientists, the panellists stated, should engage with sustainable development policies to make sure that these have scientific integrity.

A ’state of the planet declaration’ was launched at the conference, representing a summary of the major themes to have emerged over the four days and the science community’s submission to the Rio + 20 meeting. This statement, which will be refined further over the next three months, emphasises the need for greater interconnectedness between disciplines, the need for an ‘improved contract’ between science and society and a ‘global innovation system’ to support the generation of solutions. Overall, the message of the declaration and of the meeting was that the science community has a responsibility and a duty to reach out beyond its borders to other disciplines, to policy-makers and society at large to convince of the scale of the challenge and the need for changes in economics, policy and society, at local, regional and global scales, to address these.

Events are moving fast on the international biodiversity scene, with the establishment of an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the re-focussing of the Global Change Programmes, including Diversitas , within a new structure, ‘Future Earth’. There is now even greater need for a UK biodiversity committee to provide a voice for IPBES and for the activities within Diversitas.

On 25th November 2011, an open meeting was held in London, hosted by the British Ecological Society, to gauge interest in establishing a national committee which could present a UK focus for IPBES discussions and for Diversitas. There was wide support for the idea, with added encouragement for us to ensure that it was fully representative of all relevant communities (terrestrial, marine, freshwater etc) and across institutions (universities, government, NGOs, institutes). The participants also encouraged the organisers, Professor Georgina Mace and Professor Dave Raffaelli, to ensure that the committee would be constituted and managed democratically, be flexible to changing circumstances and be well supported to ensure long-term viability and relevance. That committee would report to the Royal Society’s Global Environmental Research Committee, in place of Professors Mace and Raffaelli as the current Diversitas “focal point contacts”.

To this end there is now an invitation to members of the ecological science community in the UK, to forward to serve on a National Biodiversity Committee. This committee would be drawn from the grass-roots – it should not be seen as a clique of established organisations or interest groups. Anyone can stand, no areas or sub-disciplines are excluded. The idea is to have between 10 and 15 people serve on the committee which elects a chair, decides on Terms of Reference and reports to the Royal Society’s committee a few times a year. Should the number of candidates exceed that for a workable committee, then a voting process will be developed.

If you wish to stand for this committee, please register your interest by email to Dave Raffaelli (david.raffaelli@york.ac.uk), providing the details below by the end of April 2012:~
Name:
Institution/association:
Contact details/web page:
Field of biodiversity science:
Experience of serving on similar committees:
Nominator 1, name and contact details:
Nominator 2, name and contact details:

Last week saw the joint meeting of the all party parliamentary groups on Biodiversity, UK’s Overseas Territories and Zoos and Aquariums, at which the BES Policy team was fortunate enough to attend. The meeting was chaired by Andrew Rosindell MP who began proceedings by highlighting his pleasure at the well attended event before introducing Eric Blencowe, chair of the Inter-Departmental Group on Biodiversity in the Overseas Territories. Eric Blencowe spoke of the importance of the UK’s overseas territories and highlighted their high priority status for the UK Government in the form of the UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy. Defra is to lead on an implementation plan on the biodiversity strategy which, among other things, will seek to reduce the impact of invasive species, with the Lionfish (Pterois volitans) problem in Anguilla cited as an example.

Janice Panton of the UK Overseas Territory Association and UK representative of Montserrat then spoke of her delight at a wonderful morning attending the 20 year anniversary of the Darwin Initiative event held at London Zoo, where £8.5M of funding for 33 new Darwin Projects was announced. Mrs Panton went on to state how important the overseas territories were with regards to biodiversity and how “each territory has a unique ecosystem that is often vital to their economy and a loss of biodiversity to an overseas territory is a loss to us all and help and support from the UK Government is hugely welcome”.

Dr Tim Stowe, Director of international operations at the RSPB, highlighted that although some threatened biodiversity has been recovered, the most recent extinction was only eights years previous with the loss of the last remaining individual cultivation of the Saint Helena Olive (Nesiota elliptica). Dr Stowe went on to suggest that “action is required and that action unfortunately requires money, but in the grand scheme of things, the spending on UK’s Overseas Territories is a fraction of the spend on UK biodiversity”.

Peter Convey, of the British Antarctic Survey, was the next to highlight the unique ecosystems of the UK’s overseas territories, specifically those of the two southern polar regions, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and the British Antarctic Territory. Both territories have a high level of marine biodiversity, comparable with many temperate and even tropical areas. And although the terrestrial diversity is low there are high levels of endemism creating an overall unique ecosystem. Mr Convey went on to stress that although human impacts on these ecosystems are low at present, there is a high level of vulnerability, in particular to biological invasions, such as has been highlighted previously on this blog.

Alistair Gammell, the UK director for the PEW environment group then spoke of the need to put pressure “on the street” to put pressure on the Government with regards to the fate of the UK overseas territories biodiversity as the situation is “unknown and unheard by the general public”. Mr Gammell stressed that the UK biodiversity of global importance came from its overseas territories which are all unique, specifically citing Pitcairn as an example where there were more endemic species than people. Mr Gammell ended by suggesting that the UK Government should “look upon the overseas territories as an opportunity and not as a burden as the total investment required would be miniscule”.

Dr Colin Clubbe spoke of the long association between the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the overseas territories. Dr Clubbe described how recently a new species of daisy had been found on the Falkland Islands and he predicted many more new species would be described in the coming years. Dr Clubbe went on to point out that there was “no technical reason why a plant species should go extinct”. He gave the example of the St. Helena Boxwood, which was considered to be effectively extinct in the wild, has been “brought back” by growing individuals and harvesting seeds in greenhouses at Kew.

Rob Thomas of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland then spoke to reiterate much of what had been said before and went on to suggest that the three groups present that day had “not three hats but one with many overlapping issues” and that “biodiversity should be woven into everything related to the forthcoming FCO white paper”. Finally, Rachel Jones of the Zoological Society of London described the “astonishing state of the Chagos Marine Reserve where the ecosystem is operating in a near natural state” and that the biodiversity is “off the scale”. 10 endemic species have so far been identified but only 3 per cent of the area has actually been visited and so there are likely to be many more.

The event on an extremely positive networking note with business cards being thrown around like confetti with many promises of future action.

The Rio +20 Earth Summit, taking place in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, needs to build upon the momentum begun by the last round of UNFCCC climate change negotiations in Duban, South Africa. That was the message of an event in Parliament yesterday evening, organised by the Aldersgate Group (co-sponsored by WWF) and attended by the BES Policy Team.

Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, gave the opening speech, emphasising the positives which had emerged from the climate change negotiations; primarily from the ‘huddle’ called on the conference floor at the eleventh hour by the South African delegation. Using the analogy of the film ‘Sliding Doors’, where each of two realities were equally possible depending on the choices made in an instant, Chris Huhne suggested that the outcomes of the talks could have been very different, if it wasn’t for strong leadership by a number of countries.

Outcomes from Durban included an extension to the Kyoto Protocol and a commitment to develop a successor- an international legally-binding framework to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases – no later than 2015, to come into force in 2020. Parties to the negotiations have also recognised the need for greater urgency and ambition in tackling emissions; acknowledging that the timetable for action and the pledged emissions cuts lag someway behind the necessary momentum suggested by climate science.

One of the important commitments to emerge from Durban is to a Green Climate Fund, which will assist developing countries in their efforts to establish clean energy mechanisms. Member countries of the UNFCCC are required to contribute to the fund, although the Secretary of State and others at the Aldersgate Group event recognised that public money will need to be used to leverage significant amounts of private funding for the mechanism to be a success; there were questions around whether and how, this would be possible. The Green Climate Fund builds on the pledges made at the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009, to mobilise $100 billion per year for clilmate change adaptation and mitigation.

In a question and answer session to follow the Secretary of State’s speech, one delegate challenged the Government to be yet more ambitious during international negotiations, inviting Chris Huhne to give his view on innovative approaches that can really help to move the international community towards a ‘paradigm shift’ and new political reality. To this, Chris Huhne replied that investment in science and innovation would be key; an interesting statement given the extensive analysis in recent months by the Campaign for Science and Engineering that the UK science budget is actually going to decline in real terms to 2015, whilst other countries are investing in R and D as a way out of recession.

David Nussbaum, CEO of WWF UK, speaking later in the evening, emphasised the importance of Rio +20 leading to action, not rhetoric and to a vision of human development proceeding in parallel with conservation of the planet’s ‘life support systems’ (ecosystem services). Consistency across the UK Government will be vital. A speaker from the Aldersgate Group echoed this point when calling for the Prime Minister to vest genuine responsibility in the negotiating team from Defra who will be sent to Rio; allowing substantial pledges to action to be made.

Finally, a speaker from Philips stressed the need for Rio +20 to build on the momentum and atmosphere of change which he felt was in evidence at Durban. To make genuine progress: efforts to advance technology must be continued; policy frameworks must be developed (a global treaty); innovative financing mechanisms are needed to take care of the upfront investments that will be necessary, along with changes to budgeting practice – emphasising that upfront costs may be high but long-term, this investment will reap dividends. Finally, it is vital to communicate the ecological benefits of clean energy and a decarbonised, sustainable economy to the public at large but, beyond this, the social benefits of this transition. Ultimately, this will translate to changes in individuals’ mindsets and so onwards to voting choices, consumer behaviour and to business decisions.

The final speaker, from the Aldersgate Group, was pragmatic, saying that ‘Durban teaches us that we must manage our expectations for Rio’; the pace of political negotiations and of change can be achingly slow. Alongside international negotiations, he suggested, we must develop a pluralistic consensus on the need for change.

An Aldersgate Group event on 16th May will see Secretary of State for the Environment, Caroline Spelman MP, deliver a speech looking forward to Rio +20 and outlining the UK Government’s position on the Summit.

The report of the joint British Ecologcial Society – UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (BRAG) meeting on the future of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and Intergovernmental Science – Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is now available. The session was held as part of the BES Annual Meeting at the University of Sheffield, on 13th September.

Science is an important tool to build bridges between nations and a great asset for the UK in cultural diplomacy. So said Lloyd Anderson, Director of Science at the British Council, when he joined the Policy Lunchbox network earlier this week to discuss how his organisation uses science to promote the UK overseas.

The UK is second only to the US in terms of the number of Nobel Prize winners this country has produced and is first in the G7 group of nations in terms of research quality – beating the US on the impact ratings of research output. The UK produces 8% of the world’s science outputs, compared to the US’ 30% – so punches significantly above its weight. However the UK cannot afford to be complacent. The so-called ‘BRIC’ nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China, along with Mexico, are rapidly catching up to both the UK and US in terms of research output. In order to increase their impact, researchers from the UK need to collaborate with scientists from these and other nations: for every international author added to a research paper, 3% is added to the impact of that piece of work.

The British Council was established by Royal Charter in 1934, to encourage scientific, technological and cultural co-operation between the UK and other countries. The original rationale behind the establishment of the Council was to counter Nazi propoganda – promoting the UK in countries where it was felt that fascism could gain a foothold. Now, the British Council sees itself as a ‘cultural relationships organisation’ and is supported by a £188m grant from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office each year and has a turnover of £753m.

The science activities of the Council are funded by the FCO grant. Explaining the rationale for its engagement in Science, Lloyd outlined the mission statement of the Council: “Science provides a common platform for collaboration and discussion that brings people together across deep cultural divides. [It provides] a universal language [which encourages] mutual understanding and trust and helps people in the UK and other countries to work together to address global challenges.” In other words, science is an international endeavour, critical to prosperity and is therefore an extremely useful tool in diplomacy.

In communicating about science, the British Council is trying to reach three main tiers of audience, characterised by Lloyd as ‘T1, T2 and T3′: leaders (policy-makers/ ministers); influencers (scientists, innovators, science communicators and science educators), and ‘aspirants’ (early-career researchers, students and wider publics). The Council run Global Policy Dialogues – knowledge exchange partnerships and science and innovation themed events.

Given the high number of students who come from abroad to study as graduates in the UK, outward mobility in the UK is extremely poor and is getting worse. The British Council maintain a web page listing all of the funding sources which students and researchers in the UK can access if they wish to move abroad to work or study, but take up remains low. Those around the room suggested that this situation could change given the high cost of studying as an undergraduate, and potentially in time as a postgraduate, in this country. Lloyd speculated however that international experience may be less prized on academic CVs today, with stability and publication output acting as more of a driver to academic careers – stimulated perhaps by the Research Assessment Exercise’s emphasis on publication record.

Nevertheless, exciting opportunities do exist for those researchers wishing to engage in international collaboration. BIRAX – the British Israel Exchange Programme focusing on regenerative medicine and the Opening Doors programme, getting young post-doctoral researchers from different countries to come together to discuss a particular scientific issue, such as stem cells, or climate change are two such examples. Meanwhile, the European Commission runs the EURAXESS website as a resource for young researchers, providing personal assistance and support in navigating daily life in a new country.

Finally, Lloyd provided an overview of the British Council’s work to engage the public with science, including ‘Cafe Scientifique’ events and Fame Lab International (the ‘X factor’ for scientists!), run in collaboration with the Cheltenham Science Festival.

The British Council has four science advisers in its UK office and a network of scientific specialists worldwide. The outcome of all of this work is to increase recognition of the UK as a source of expertise and a partner for skills development. Science is one of the UK’s most attractive assets and Lloyd made it clear that there is plenty of scope for Learned Societies and NGOs to work with the British Council to foster an understanding of the importance of science worldwide.

Policy Lunchbox is a network for those working in science policy, maintained by the British Ecological Society and the Biochemical Society. For information about our forthcoming events, see the Policy Lunchbox website.

Today is the first day of a plenary meeting to discuss and decide upon the formation of the Integovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), convened by the UN Environment Programme. Representatives from the United Nations, and observers from NGOs and other bodies, have assembled in Nairobi, Kenya, to consider how IPBES will operate and, amongst other decisions, determine where the IPBES secretariat will be located.

On the eve of the meeting, Prof. Bob Watson, Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser, gave an interview to the Independent newspaper, in which he outlined his hopes for IPBES. Prof. Watson suggested that the only way in which IPBES can function effectively will be if developing nations have ownership over any in-country ecosystem assessments which are conducted, and if these are conducted by scientists from that nation – similar to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. “If they think that this is just the white world, the developed world, telling them what to do, that’ll be the end of it.”

The BES, together with the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (UK BRAG) organised a session at the BES Annual Meeting in Sheffield last month which introduced the IPBES to the assembled ecologists. Dr Andrew Stott, Defra’s representative to IPBES from the civil service, outlined the role of IPBES, as agreed at a meeting in Busan, South Korea, in 2010. A copy of Dr Stott’s presentation is available from the BES website.

As outlined by Dr Stott, IPBES will:

- Generate new knowledge: identifying information needed for policy; catalysing research and surveying
- Conduct regular and timely assessments: at global, regional and sub-regional scales; and on thematic and ‘new topics identified by science’.
- Provide support for policy formulation, through promoting access to policy-relevant tools and methods;
- Have a capacity building function: identifying needs; supporting the highest priority needs; catalysing funding.

IPBES is intended as an ‘IPCC for biodiversity’; a credible, scientifically independent body which is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive (similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

At the plenary meeting over the next few days decisions will be made about how the IPBES is structured; whether, for example, a scientific advisory group is formed which can advise the Plenary – the IPBES decision-making body- on scientific and technical aspects of the work programme and which can approve specific scientific procedures related to how ecosystem assessments are conducted. A further meeting in Nairobi, in March/ April 2012, will see delegates decide on further aspects of how the IPBES will work, including its work programme.

As IPBES develops, there are likely to be opportunities for ecologists and others to get involved with the conduct of assessments and with capacity building, although questions remain about how to incentivise scientists to take part in these activities (for example, through university reward structures such as the Research Excellence Framework). Ecologists and others in the UK who would like to find out more about IPBES and who would like to remain fully engaged with the development of the Platform, can join the UK Stakeholder Group, maintained by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

Last night the BES’s Policy Officer attended an event to celebrate the founding of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area (MPA), around the Chagos Archipelago. The programme of talks and networking was organised by the Chagos Conservation Trust, a charitable trust which, with other partners in the Chagos Environment Network, including the RSPB, Royal Society and Pew Environment Group, actively promote conservation of the Chagos. The highlights of the evening however were however two short films which showcased the huge biological diversity of the seas around the Chagos, with turtles, sharks, rays and a huge number of fish species caught on camera. The films also made clear the diversity of avian and crustacean species inhabiting the islands.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office designated the waters around the Chagos as a Marine Protected Area on 1st April 2010, following a consultation to which the BES responded. The last license to fish in the seas around the Chagos expired at the end of October, meaning that from the 1st November this year, all fishing is prohibited. The Chagos MPA encompasses more than 500,000 km2 of the Indian Ocean, one of the most heavily fished and degraded oceans in the world. At this size, the MPA represents 13% of all oceans held in protected areas worldwide (which currently equate to 1.12% of oceans, with only 0.08% having total protection, as ‘no take’ zones). At the CBD in Nagoya in October this year, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to a target to designate 10% of the ocean’s surface as protected areas by 2020.

Perhaps the most interesting presentation of the evening was delivered by Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of the IUCN Marine and Polar Programme. The presentation focused on how the MPA can now be taken forward, including priorities for research, the development of regulation and enforcement of the MPA as a no-take reserve. Mr Lundin suggested that ‘zoning’ could be a useful approach to regulation, as in the Great Barrier Reef, proposing that tourism could be allowed in certain areas to provide money to support conservation. He saw enforcement as the priority for the MPA in the next couple of years, suggesting that a lenient attitude had been adopted to date with regard to illegal fishing: he stressed that even the smallest fishing vessels should be stopped.

Following Mr Lundin’s presentation, a representative from the FCO stood up to say a few words. He stressed the commitment of the Coalition Government to the conservation of the MPA in the Chagos, but highlighted the political realities impinging upon the success of the project – mainly relationships with the countries neighbouring the MPA (particularly Mauritius, which does not respect UK sovereignity over the British Indian Ocean Territory). The ongoing legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights regarding the right of Chagossian Islanders to return to the islands was also highlighted an issue of which to be aware. A judicial review has been sought by some Chagossians regarding the designation of the MPA.

Overall it is clear that challenges lie ahead for the Chagos MPA, particularly regarding illiegal fishing and providing finance for enforcement of the area’s protected status. However it is clear that designation of the MPA is a very important step, both to safeguard the Chagos’ own phenomenal biodiversity and to provide a test bed for important scientific research, but also as an example which other nations can follow in order to reach the ambitious targets set at Nagoya.