IPSI Newsletter, October 2017

2017.10.19

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).

This month’s newsletter contains a report from recent events held in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, including an International Forum on Biocultural Diversity and the Twelfth Meeting of the IPSI Steering Committee, which welcomed 10 new members and endorsed 6 new collaborative activities. We are also passing on a Call for Input from IPBES for the Global Sustainable Development Report, and we are happy to report the recipients of the 2017 round of the Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM). Finally, we would like to introduce readers to one of IPSI's newest members, Observer Ecological Consultant, Co., Ltd., based in Chinese Taipei.

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

International Forum on Biocultural Diversity, IPSI SC-12, and related events

The first in a planned series of international forums to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the 1st Asian Conference on Biocultural Diversity was held on 4 October 2017 in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, titled "Biocultural diversity & satoyama: Efforts towards societies in harmony with nature around the world". The forum was organized by the IPSI Secretariat and the Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa (OUIK) at UNU-IAS, along with the Ishikawa Prefecture and Kanazawa City governments, and the Hokkoku Shimbun newspaper. It was also held back-to-back with the Twelfth Meeting of the IPSI Steering Committee (SC-12), and a number of additional events were also organized to give IPSI's Steering Committee members and local experts opportunities to exchange knowledge on SEPLS including Japan's satoyama and satoumilandscapes and seascapes.

The Forum featured keynote speeches by Prof. Takakazu Yumoto of Kyoto University and IPSI Steering Committee Chair Prof. Alfred Oteng-Yeboah of the Ghana National Biodiversity Committee. SEPLS case studies from India and Eastern Europe were then given by Steering Committee members Dr. Anil Kumar and Dr. Senka Barudanovic, and a panel followed with all of the above experts as well as Ms. Evonne Yiu and moderated by Mr. Tsunao Watanabe, both from UNU-IAS OUIK.

The organizers also provided the Steering Committee with a lecture on biocultural diversity in the area by Prof. Koji Nakamura of Kanazawa University, and an excursion to a number of satoyamaand satoumi sites on the Noto Peninsula, as well as a welcome reception hosted by Ishikawa Prefecture. The IPSI Secretariat would like to thank our colleagues and friends at all of the co-organizers, as well as all of the IPSI Steering Committee members who made the events a great success.

IPSI Welcomes 10 New Members

We are pleased to announce that at its meeting earlier this month, the IPSI Steering Committee confirmed 10 new member organizations, bringing IPSI’s total membership to 220 organizations. It is therefore our pleasure to welcome:

• Accelerated Rural Development Organisation (ARDO), Ghana

• Asociación de campesinos vecinos del Parque Natural Nacional Serranía de los Yariguies (ASOCAPAYARI), Colombia

• Community Entrepreneur Development Institute (CENDI), Viet Nam

• Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Ethiopia

• Ministry of Environment, Ecology and Forests, Madagascar

• Observer Ecological Consultant Co., Ltd., Chinese Taipei

• Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development (PASD), Thailand

• Research Center for Rural Development (RCRD) of An Giang University, Viet Nam

• South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE), India

• Shumei International, Japan

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

6 New IPSI Collaborative Activities 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 its meeting this month, the IPSI Steering Committee approved the proposals for 6 new IPSI Collaborative Activities, bringing the total number of IPSI Collaborative Activities to 46.

The new activities are:

• SATO-UMI-YAMA Project: Environmental Education and Public Awareness on Biodiversity Conservation in Asia Pacific Region - by Japan Environmental Education Forum (JEEF), Birdlife International, and Conservation International

• 2018 International Symposium on Resilience of SEPL - by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau (SWCB) of Chinese Taipei and SWAN International

• Development and sharing of multimedia learning resources for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Satoyama - by University of the Philippines Open University and Kanazawa University

• Enhancing the knowledge and adoption of IPSI protocols by district assemblies governing the Kakum Conservation Area - by Conservation Alliance International, A Rocha Ghana and the Ghana National Biodiversity Committee

• Promoting and Enhancing the Karen Indigenous Sustainable Socio-ecological Production System in Northern Thailand - by Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Cultural in Thailand Association (IMPECT), Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Foundation (IKAP), the Forest Peoples Programme and Conservation International

• Improvement of the livelihoods of the communities through the sustainable management of productive landscapes and biodiversity conservation in mangrove (Estuaries Chone and Portoviejo), the dry forest (Cordillera del Balsamo) and rainforest (Comune Playa de Oro), Ecuador - by Social Development and Research Foundation (FIDES) and Conservation International

We look forward to providing more information on the individual activities as it becomes available.

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.

Call for Inputs: IPBES Global Sustainable Development Report

The IPSI Secretariat recently heard from our colleagues at the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that inputs are sought "from the widest-possible group of scientific and non-scientific communities" to the "Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR)", a major quadrennial publication to assess the state of sustainable development.The next edition of the GSDR is scheduled for publication in 2019 and will inform the High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development (HLPF), the major body overseeing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IPSI members are highly encouraged to consider contributing to this call for input.

The deadline for contributions is 1 December 2017. For more information, and to access the call for input, please go to https://goo.gl/BHdL3b.

SDM 2017 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 2017 round.

The selected recipients are as follows:

• Conservation Solutions Afrika: “Use of Mobile Technology for assessing community and wildlife use of rangeland resources”, Kenya

• KEFRI: “Restoration of Sacred Kaya forests in Kenyan Coast for enhanced provision of ecosystem services and products for improved livelihoods”, Kenya

• Unnayan Onneshan: “Designing an Enhanced Bio-diverse Adaptation to Climate Change in the Sundarbans”, Bangladesh

• HDARES: "Taiwan stingless bee field investigation and greenhouse pollination preliminary work”, Chinese Taipei

• CORFOPAL: “Resilience level assessment of the Key Biodiversity Areas San Antonio Forest/KM 18 and community empowerment on conservation”, Colombia

• University of the Philippines Open University: “Contextualization of the Instructional Materials for the Training of Youths toward Conservation of Ifugao Rice Terraces as a Satoyama Landscape”, Philippines

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.

New Member Introduction: Observer Ecological Consultant Co., Ltd

The IPSI Secretariat is very happy to have already received an introduction from one of the members who joined IPSI at the recent SC-12 meeting, Observer Ecological Consultant Co., Ltd. in Chinese Taipei. Here is the message they sent:

"Observer Ecological Consultant Co., Ltd is specialized in ecological survey, evaluation, and related applications, especially in framing conservation strategies and ecological engineering planning. We aim to become the bridge between (Ecosystem) Ecology and Engineering and to meet the balance for both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. We also focus on eco-friendly agriculture in recent years by starting an ecological conservation project in a paddy field, tried to understand the possibility of human livelihood and requirements of wildlife populations can be meet in a Satoyama region."

We are sure we join all of IPSI's members in welcoming this new member to the IPSi family. For more information, please see their website here.

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.