The United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), which serves as the IPSI Secretariat, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), held a side event at the Twentieth Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD SBSTTA-20) on Tuesday, 26 April 2016, focusing on activities carried out under the Satoyama Initiative for improving the knowledge base and influencing policy processes toward mainstreaming biodiversity as well as sustainable livelihoods in various sectors.

The event was titled “Collection and strategic use of knowledge for mainstreaming biodiversity into various sectors”, and featured speakers involved in various activities related to collecting and making effective use of knowledge. Activities to date have included work with case studies and indicators and the development of knowledge products. Collecting quality information can be difficult in itself, but it is at least as important to synthesize it into easily-comprehensible knowledge through the extraction of key lessons learned, identification of effective practices for replication and scaling-up, and others before it can be put to strategic use. Commentary was also provided by experts familiar with the development of the Satoyama Initiative and IPSI.

Programme:

The programme of the event was as follows (presentation files included):
Opening Remarks: Fumiko Nakao (MOEJ)
Introduction: Yohsuke Amano (UNU-IAS) “Introduction to the Satoyama Initiative”

Presentations:

Yasuo Takahashi (IGES) “Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM): Landscape approach to mainstreaming biodiversity into primary production sectors”
Yoko Watanabe (GEF Secretariat) “Financing Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Production Landscapes and Seascapes”
Yoji Natori (CI Japan) “GEF Satoyama Project”

Expert comments:

Jo Mulongoy (Institute for Enhanced Livelihoods)
Bijaya Raj Paudyal (Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Nepal) (slides)
Somaly Chan (Ministry of Environment, Cambodia)