IPSI Newsletter, October 2018

2018.10.16

Dear IPSI members and friends,

Greetings from the IPSI Secretariat in Tokyo, Japan. IPSI and its members continue to stay active in a wide variety of projects and activities related to maintaining and revitalizing socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS).

We are looking forward to taking part in CBD COP 14 next month, so please see below for more information. This month’s newsletter also contains reports from the recent Seventh IPSI Global Conference, held in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, including a meeting of the IPSI Steering Committee, where ten new IPSI members were accepted and one new Collaborative Activity was endorsed. See below for details. We are also pleased to share the results of the 2018 round of the Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM) project selection, and recent publications: an online compendium on assessing agrobiodiversity, and newsletters from the GEF-Satoyama Project and COMDEKS Project, both IPSI Collaborative Activities.

As always, we hope you will contact us to submit any new case studies or other information about your activities, or if you have any questions or comments.

IPSI Secretariat

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IPSI Activities at CBD COP 14

The Fourteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 14) will be held 17-29 November 2018 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, with various high-level events and other forums held back-to-back. The COP meeting is the major biennial event of the governing body of the CBD, and the IPSI Secretariat looks forward to taking part in the meeting and collaborating with many IPSI members and friends.

The IPSI Secretariat itself is planning to hold our own side events and take part in others', to run a display booth in the CEPA Fair section, and to take part in other events held concurrently and back-to-back with the COP meeting. The details of many of these are still to be confirmed, so please keep an eye on the IPSI website and other communications for up-to-date information.

We are sure that many readers will be attending and holding activities at CBD COP 14. Please contact the Secretariat and let us know about your plans, so that we as a partnership can make the most of this major event and work toward mainstreaming the concepts of the Satoyama Initiative in important international policymaking processes. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

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The Seventh IPSI Global Conference (IPSI-7)

The Seventh IPSI Global Conference (IPSI-7) was held from 29 September to 2 October 2018 in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, organized by the IPSI Secretariat and the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ), and hosted by the Ishikawa Prefectural Government. The Conference consisted of the Thirteenth Meeting of the IPSI Steering Committee, a Public Forum, a meeting of the IPSI General Assembly, and an excursion for participants.

The Public Forum is open to the general public for sharing information about the Satoyama Initiative and IPSI activities. This theme this time was "Assessing the Satoyama Initiative’s Contributions towards Achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and Sustainable Development Goals". The General Assembly is primarily for information-sharing and decisions regarding the future direction of IPSI, and is open to all IPSI members. The agenda this time also focused on assessment of IPSI's contributions and achievements to date. The discussion led to the endorsement of the IPSI-7 "Ishikawa Statement 2018", which expresses participants’ commitment to promoting the importance of SEPLS in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

The excursion on 2 October gave participants a chance to see a number of sites on the Noto Peninsula, an area of Ishikawa Prefecture well known for its satoyama landscapes and satoumiseascapes, which are recognized under the FAO's Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) programme, and are good examples of biocultural diversity and SEPLS in Japan.

We at the Secretariat would like to once again thank all of the participants, and especially our co-organizers at MOEJ and hosts at the Ishikawa Prefectural Government. It is thanks to all of your help and support that the Global Conference was such a success.

A full report of IPSI-7 will be made available in the near future. In the meantime, more information can be found on the IPSI website here.

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IPSI Welcomes 10 New Members

We are pleased to announce that at its meeting last month, the IPSI Steering Committee confirmed 10 new member organizations, bringing IPSI’s total membership to 240 organizations. It is therefore our pleasure to welcome:

• Borneo Conservation Trust Japan

• Center for Green Economy Development – Nepal (CGED – Nepal)

• Chinese Society for Environmental Education (CSEE) – Chinese Taipei

• Fostering Education & Environment for Development, Inc. (FEED) – Philippines

• Groupe d’Intervention pour l’Encadrement et la Réhabilitation Intégrale (GIERI) / Landcare Network DRC – D. R. Congo

• Kumamoto Prefectural Government – Japan

• LEAF Co., Ltd. – Japan

• Fundación Semillas de Vida, A.C. – Mexico

• Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP) – Italy

• Committee of Intermunicipal Associations of the State of Jalisco (CAIEJ) – Mexico

We look forward to collaborating closely with all of the new members in promoting the concept of the Satoyama Initiative in the future.

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New IPSI Collaborative Activity Endorsed

IPSI Collaborative Activities are activities carried out by at least two IPSI members (possibly in collaboration with other organizations), and approved as such by the IPSI Steering Committee. At its meeting this month, the IPSI Steering Committee approved the proposal for one new IPSI Collaborative Activity, bringing the total number of IPSI Collaborative Activities to 47.

The new activity is:

• Research on development and implementation of National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) toward realization of societies in harmony with nature – by Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S); The University of Tokyo and United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS); and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

IPSI members are encouraged to propose any activities carried out in collaboration with other members as IPSI Collaborative Activities. This is a great opportunity to gain more attention for your activities and to improve IPSI’s functioning as a partnership, as well as to improve SEPLS management through knowledge sharing. Please contact the IPSI Secretariat if you have any activities that may be potential IPSI Collaborative Activities.

More information on IPSI Collaborative Activities is available on the IPSI website here.

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SDM 2018 Project Selection Results

In 2013, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOEJ), and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) jointly launched the “Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM)” as a collaborative activity under the framework of IPSI to facilitate further implementation of IPSI activities by providing seed funding to promising project proposals.The SDM Executive Board recently announced the six recipients of grants offered for the 2018 round.

The selected recipients are as follows:

• Environmental Protection Information Centre (EPIC): "Establishment of Vetiver Grass Nursery and Hedge Rows for control of Eutrophication in Lake Victoria", Uganda

• Fundaciòn para la Promociòn del Conocimiento Indìgena (FPCI): "Conservation and management of biodiversity of cultural, spiritual and food sovereignty importance and recovery of indigenous knowledge in the management of their territory", Panama

• Community Entrepreneur Development Institute (CENDI): "Community implementation of mixed species restoration for livelihoods and ecological function", Viet Nam

• South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE): "Sustainable Intensification of Ecosystem Services for Conservation of Production Agriscape and Biodiversity in Community Conserved Forests of Western Arunachal Pradesh, India", India

• World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF): "Enhancing Upland Adaptation to Multidimensional Shocks and Stressors for Improving Livelihood and Landscape"

• Amis de l’Afrique Francophone (AMAF) - Bénin: "Strengthening Resilience for Community Conservation of Biodiversity and wet ecosystems in Ouémé Valley", Benin

The contents of the activities as well as outcomes of the selected projects will be compiled and shared with all IPSI members during the subsequent implementation phase.

For more information, please see the the IGES website here.

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New Publication: Compendium of Methods for Assessing Agrobiodiversity

IPSI member the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR) has developed an online compendium of methods for assessing agrobiodiversity. According to the description on their website: "Drawing on experiences from around the world, the Compendium was created to support the documentation, co-creation and sharing of knowledge about diversity and its management. The Compendium provides guidelines for the collection and analysis of data about the diversity of crops, livestock, pollinators and harvested wild plants." It also contains a section on the "Indicators of Resilience in SEPLS", an output of an IPSI Collaborative Activity.

The Compendium is available for download from the PAR website here.

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GEF-Satoyama Project Newsletter

The IPSI collaborative activity “Mainstreaming Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management in Priority Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes”, known as the “GEF-Satoyama Project” is an effort to “achieve societies in harmony with nature, with sustainable primary production sector based on traditional and modern wisdom, and making significant contributions to global targets for conservation of biological diversity” by working in targeted biodiversity hotspots around the world. The project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), implemented by Conservation International’s CI-GEF Project Agency and executed by Conservation International Japan in cooperation with the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS, the Secretariat of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative) and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).

The GEF-Satoyama Project recently produced its seventh quarterly newsletter, including updates from project components and reports of the recent 2018 GEF SGP China Workshop on Capacity Building for NGOs and Landscape Approach.

The newsletter is available on the GEF-Satoyama Project website here.

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COMDEKS Newsletter – A quarterly update of activities – Issue 25

The Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative (COMDEKS) programme is a unique global programme implemented by the UNDP as a collaborative activity under IPSI. The twenty-fourth issue of the COMDEKS Newsletter was recently published, highlighting:

(1)  Upscaling of climate-friendly livelihood opportunities in the Indian Himalayas
(2)  Supporting landscape resilience in five diverse Protected Areas in Bolivia
(3)  Landscape-wide baseline assessments conducted in Egypt using the SEPLS Resilience Indicators
(4)  A community micro-lending scheme opens door to new livelihood opportunities in Costa Rica
(5)  Portfolio Updates: Indonesia and Namibia
(6) Videos on the Indicators of Resilience in Spanish

The newsletter is available for download on the COMDEKS website here

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Contact

Please be sure to let the Secretariat know if there are any changes in your e-mail address or contact information.

Secretariat of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative
5–53–70 Jingumae
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925
Japan

Tel: +81 3-5467-1212
Fax: +81 3-3499-2828

Email: isi@unu.edu

If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to SUBSCRIBE, you can do so on the IPSI website here.