Date: 13 February 2024

Time: 10:00-11:30 am JST

Format: Online (Registration required)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with local communities to promote the sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources through the Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative (COMDEKS) since 2011. Phase 4 of this initiative will be implemented with support from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment (MOEJ) and the Keidanren Committee on Nature Conservation (KCNC). UNDP, the Ministry of the Environment Japan and the Keidanren Committee for Nature Conservation are co-hosting this event to deepen understanding of the aims and significance of this initiative.

COMDEKS internationally supports activities that allow people to live in harmony with nature by putting their hands in nature and utilizing it for local production activities, etc., as in Japan’s “satoyama/satoumi”. The aim is to maintain and reconstruct activities similar to those of Satoyama and Satoumi in developing countries. Since the project started in 2011, it has supported projects in 20 countries and 216 regions around the world, and entered its fourth phase (Phase 4) in 2023.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a global goal for 2030, aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in order to put nature on a recovery track. In Japan, the National Biodiversity Strategy 2023-2030, a strategy to protect and utilize biodiversity and natural capital, which is the foundation of global sustainability and the basis of human security, has been established, and socioeconomic activities to protect and utilize natural capital are being promoted.

In this event, the concept of “SATOYAMA” and the biodiversity framework will be explained in a way that is easy to understand for those who are not familiar with it. An overview of COMDEKS’ activities to realize the “SATOYAMA” concept will be introduced, as well as specific activities and results at sites around the world.

*COMDEKS (Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative)  is an IPSI flagship program launched in June 2011 by the Japan Biodiversity Fund, funded by the Japanese government. The implementing agency is UNDP.