IPSI Newsletter, September 2017

2017.09.20

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 at the Secretariat are are happy to announce that we recently published a new booklet and annual report for FY2016, and, looking forward, we are already beginning our preparations for CBD SBSTTA-21 in December of this year. We would also like to let you know that the summary report of the Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah, Malaysia has been completed, including abstracts of all presentations given at the workshop. Regarding events, we have an announcement of an upcoming Public Forum on Biocultural Diversity, and a report from a recent workshop on gender mainstreaming, both held here in Japan. We are also sharing the latest newsletters from two of IPSI's most important Collaborative Activities, the COMDEKS programme, and the "GEF-Satoyama Project".

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 Booklet and FY2016 Annual Report published

We are proud to announce that a new information booklet about IPSI, including our 2016 Annual Report has been published. The booklet contains background and up-to-date information about IPSI for current and prospective members, including several examples of case studies and collaborative activities by our members. The Annual Report section gives an overview of our current membership, major events and announcements from the year, and updates on collaborative activities, communications and others. This booklet is an excellent resource for anyone interested in IPSI and our activities, and we encourage all readers to take a look and share it with anyone who may be interested.

The booklet will be available at IPSI events this year, and can also be downloaded here.

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IPSI involvement in CBD SBSTTA-21

The IPSI Secretariat is looking forward to sending staff members to Montreal, Canada for the Convention on Biological Diversity's Twenty-first Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-21) from 11 to 14 December. We look forward to providing support to all of our members who are parties to the Convention and also to seeing friends from the IPSI community. This meeting will also be held back-to-back with the Tenth Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Article 8(j) and Related Provisions of the Convention (WG8J-10).

If you or your organization is planning to attend either or both of the meetings, and especially if you are planning to hold side events, please be sure to contact the IPSI Secretariat and let us know. We will also be sharing more about side events and other information relevant to IPSI as we receive it. We look forward to hearing from you, and hopefully seeing you in Montreal.

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Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah Summary Report Now Available

The summary report and collected presentation abstracts for the recent Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah, Malaysia, held in April 2017 in Kota Kinabalu, has been completed and is now available for download here.

The report contains abstracts of all presentations given during the workshop, as well as a great deal of other information about the workshop, including outcomes and lessons learned. More information about the event is available on the event announcement page here.

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Public Forum on Biocultural Diversity

A "Public Forum on Biocultural Diversity" is scheduled to be held at 14:00-17:00 on 4 October 2017 in Kanazawa Bunka Hall in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, organized by the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability's Operating Unit Ishikawa-Kanazawa (UNU-IAS OUIK) and the IPSI Secretariat, with support from the Ishikawa Prefectural Government and the Hokkoku Shimbun newspaper company. The Forum is being held as a part of a series organized by UNU-IAS OUIK to commemorate last year's 1st Asian Conference on Biocultural Diversity, and will have the title "Biocultural Diversity & Satoyama – Learning about Worldwide Efforts towards Societies in Harmony with Nature".

Members of the IPSI Steering Committee will be in Kanazawa at that time for a Steering Commitee meeting, and its Chair, Prof. Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, will give a keynote address, and members Dr. Senka Barudanovic and Dr. Anil Kumar will also present and take part in the panel discussion at the Forum. This will be an excellent opportunity for participants to learn about and discuss issues related to promoting biocultural diversity, including the Satoyama Initiative and IPSI's role. Any readers who are able to attend are encouraged to do so.

Please see the UNU-IAS OUIK website here for more information and registration information.

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GEF-Satoyama Project Gender Mainstreaming Workshop

A workshop on gender mainstreaming was held on 6-8 September 2017 at the United Nations University Headquarters building in Tokyo, Japan, organized by Conservation International Japan under the "GEF-Satoyama Project". Members of the IPSI Secretariat staff and other IPSI members attended to learn about various issues surrounding gender and how to incorporate it into project implementation. The workshop was facilitated by Ms. Whitney Anderson, Conservation International's gender focal point for the Asia-Pacific region.

For more information on the workshop and the GEF-Satoyama Project in general, please see its website here.

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COMDEKS Newsletter – A quarterly update of activities – Issue 21

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-first issue of the COMDEKS Newsletter was recently published, highlighting:

(1)  Celebration of the “Arbor Day” at the San Mateo community, Costa Rica
(2)  Videos on the Indicators of Resilience produced by the GEF-Satoyama Project
(3)  Women and youth empowerment around Lake Tabalak, Niger
(4)  Local communities as drivers of sustainable rural development in Brazil
(5) Portfolio Updates: Bhutan and El Salvador

(6) Video from Cameroon

The COMDEKS Newsletter is available for download on the COMDEKS 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 third quarterly newsletter, including a report of the GEF-Satoyama side event at the Satoyama Initiative Regional Workshop in Sabah, Malaysiain April 2017, and progress in implementation by partners in the field.

The newsletter is available on the GEF-Satoyama Project 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.