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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 the Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah, Malaysia, which was held last month and was very successful thanks to the great cooperation we received from our friends at the Sabah Natural Resources Office and other IPSI members who contributed in many ways. We are also pleased to share an invitation to take part in external review of IPBES assessments, and news of two recent publications, the latest SDM booklet and an article on terraced landscapes. We also present a recent IPSI case study received from the Royal Society for Protection of Nature in Bhutan.
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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Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah
The Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah was held from 18 to 20 April in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. This was the second Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop to be held in the Asia region and the fifth Regional Workshop overall, following on those held in Asia (Kathmandu, Nepal, 2013), Europe (Florence, Italy, 2014) and Africa (Accra, Ghana, 2015), and Latin America and the Caribbean (Cusco and Pisac, Peru, 2016).
Around 80 participants from more than 15 countries in Asia took part in the whole workshop, including opening and closing plenaries, working-group sessions and a day-long excursion to various sites around Sabah. More than 200 people also joined for part of the workshop, many to see the opening plenary, exhibitions presented by local organizations and communities, excursion sites, etc. The workshop was co-organized by the IPSI Secretariat at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and the Sabah State Government, with cooperation and contributions from the Japan International Cooperation Agency's Project on Sustainable Development for Biodiversity and Ecosystems Conservation in Sabah, Malaysia (JICA-SDBEC) and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.
The workshop theme this time was "Mainstreaming socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes in Asia", and like previous Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshops, this event provided participants with many opportunities to learn about and discuss various SEPLS-related activities in the region, and implications for upscaling and replication.
The official workshop report will be made available in the near future. For more details on the workshop, please see the event page on the IPSI website here.
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Invitation to Participate in External Review of IPBES Assessments by Governments and Experts
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) aims to finalize five assessments at the sixth session of its plenary in March 2018: four regional assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services (for Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe and Central Asia) and the thematic assessment on land degradation and restoration. The period has now begun in which they are opened for external review by any interested experts, ranging from scientists and decision-makers, to practitioners and the holders of indigenous and local knowledge.
The eight-week period for external review of the second order drafts of the assessment chapters and the first order drafts of the summaries for policymakers will run from 1 May until 26 June 2017 for the land degradation and restoration, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe and Central Asia assessments; and from 29 May until 24 July 2017 for the Americas assessment.
For more information and instructions on how to participate, please see the announcement on the IPBES website here.
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SDM 2016 Booklet Published
The Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM) was established in 2013 as an IPSI collaborative activity between the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), UNU-IAS and the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, to promote activities in line with the IPSI Strategy and Plan of Action through the provision of seed funding to promising projects proposed by IPSI members. Six projects have been selected every year, and each year a booklet is published containing updates on ongoing projects, reports from completed projects, and announcements of newly selected projects. The booklets contain a great deal of useful information on implementation of projects for SEPLS management, and should be very interesting for anyone involved with the Satoyama Initiative.
The booklet for SDM 2016 is now available for download on the IGES website here.
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New article on terraced landscapes and protected cultural heritage sites
Researchers at IPSI member the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts recently published an article titled "Terraced landscapes and protected cultural heritage sites" in the January issue of Acta Geographica Slovenica. The article draws heavily on IPSI case studies as a resource, and makes mention of the Satoyama Initiative and related landscape approaches in many places. This article contributes significantly to the scientific basis for the Satoyama Initiative globally, and should be a great resource for anyone interested in terraced landscapes and SEPLS in general.
The article can be found on ResearchGate here.
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Recent Case Study: Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN), Bhutan and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal
The IPSI Secretariat recently received a case study from partner organization the Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN) in Bhutan, produced together with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal, titled "A Multi-Dimensional Assessment of Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services in Barshong, Bhutan".
To develop a comprehensive understanding of ecosystems and their services in Barshong Gewog in Tsirang, Bhutan, and their nexus with human well-being, secondary information, participatory rural appraisal and household-survey geospatial tools were used to assess the state and dynamics of ecosystems and their capacity to provide goods and services as well as community vulnerability to drivers of change and coping strategies to perceived changes. Additionally, ecosystem services were also mapped bases on importance and dependency.
Understanding the trends in ecosystem services in relation to the well-being of people is key to know the real value of the ecosystem. While the dependency on resources is high, ecosystem health is still maintained. However, for sustainable management, alternative livelihood options like tourism, cottage industries and market for ecosystem services payment are recommended as opportunities to be tapped.
For more information, please see the full write-up of the case study on the IPSI 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.
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