IPSI Newsletter, December 2014

2014.12.18

The IPSI Secretariat wishes all IPSI members and friends the warmest season's greetings as another year comes to an end.

This year has been a busy one for both the Secretariat and our partners all around the world, with IPSI gaining more recognition in a number of international processes, particularly those of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The partnership has now grown to 164 members, and the quantity and quality of collaboration between members continues to improve. We at the Secretariat have a lot of exciting projects planned for 2015 as well, and we look forward to working with all of you next year and into the future.

In addition to season's greetings, we are sending out advance notice of a Call for Papers that will be made in January for a new publication related to IPSI case studies. We are also happy to share a report on a recent International Symposium on Satoyama in the Hokusetsu region of Japan, the announcement of the latest COMDEKS Newsletter, and a recently-received case study report from IPSI partner the Center for Integrated Mountain Research. As always, we are welcoming case study reports from any members who would like to submit them. Please contact the Secretariat if you have any questions regarding IPSI case studies.

We would also like to take this opportunity to provide our members with some background information on the recent ratification of the IPSI Charter and Operational Guidelines, based on the previous IPSI Operational Framework, which we reported in our October Newsletter.

Once again, we wish you the best for the coming year, and we look forward to hearing from you regarding all of your activities supporting Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes.

IPSI Secretariat

Season's Greetings from the IPSI Secretariat

The staff of the IPSI Secretariat in Tokyo, Japan wish you the warmest greetings for the holiday season, and the best of success in the coming year.

(top row) Kaoru Ichikawa, Ayumi Takahashi, Ayako Kawai, Yohsuke Amano, Kazuhiko Seriu

(bottom row) William Dunbar, Kazu Takemoto, Wataru Suzuki

Advance Notice of Call for Papers: “Enhancing knowledge for better management of SEPLS”

The IPSI Secretariat would like to give subscribers advance notice that we will soon be announcing a Call for Papers for a pilot edition of a compilation of high quality case studies submitted by IPSI members, with the theme of “Enhancing knowledge for better management of SEPLS”.

In order to further bolster IPSI’s function in consolidating and extracting knowledge on SEPLS to share with wider audiences, the IPSI Secretariat is planning to publish a compilation of high quality case studies providing useful knowledge and lessons focusing on a specific theme. In addition to the case studies themselves, the publication will include a synthesis paper, extracting and bringing together key points and lessons to be fed into relevant academic and policy discussions.

Authors from IPSI member organizations who have case studies relevant to the theme are highly encouraged to submit them after the official Call for Papers is announced.

For more information on the upcoming Call for Papers, including an expected timeline for publication, please see the full announcement on the IPSI webpage here.

International Symposium on HokusetsuSatoyama

An international symposium titled “From Hokusetsu Region to the World: our Satoyama” was held on 30 November 2014 in Takarazuka City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, in order to support activities in the satoyama production landscapes of the Hokusetsu region and to publicize the vision for a “Hokusetsu Satoyama Museum” to the wider world. The Hokusetsu region is in in the western part of Japan, and consists of parts of Osaka and Hyogo Prefectures.

The symposium featured presentations by a number of experts on sustainable management of SEPLS around the world, and satoyama landscapes in Japan in particular. Mr. Wataru Suzuki of the IPSI Secretariat discussed the concept socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS), the development of the Satoyama Initiative and IPSI, and their relevance to the Hokusetsu region. Ms. Florence Daguitan from IPSI member the Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education (TEBTEBBA) also gave a presentation on SEPLS in the Philippines, focusing on social and cultural aspects related to the indigenous people and use of traditional knowledge.

An excursion was also made on 1 December to landscape sites near Takarazuka City in Hyogo Prefecture including Mt. Myoken, a local charcoal kiln, and a cherry-tree forest, where local practitioners explained their activities. Both the symposium and the excursion gave participants from inside Japan and around the world a chance to learn about landscape management in Japan and engage in fruitful dialogue about larger issues of landscape and seascape approaches to biodiversity and sustainable resource management.

For more information on the event, please see the event page on the IPSI website here.

COMDEKS Newsletter – A quarterly update of activities – Issue 10

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 ninth issue of the COMDEKS Newsletter was recently published, highlighting:

(1) Resilience Indicators Toolkit released at WPC, Sydney
(2) Launch of COMDEKS publication during CBD-COP12
(3) A new COMDEKS Brochure
(4) Towards productive landscapes – ETFRN News
(5) Launch of community projects in Cameroon
(6) A COMDEKS video from Slovakia
(7) Portfolio updates: Indonesia and Namibia
(8) A COMDEKS photo story from Cameroon

To download this newsletter in PDF, please click here.

Recent Case Studies: Sustainable agro and community forestry in localities around Ayubia National Park, Western Himalayas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK Province), Pakistan

We are pleased to present an IPSI case study report submitted by member organization the Center for Integrated Mountain Research (CIMR) at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

On the bases of information collected by CIMR through its different research programs in this area, it has been estimated that deforestation has caused drastic impacts on the environment, biodiversity and people of the villages around Ayubia National Park (ANP). The main reason behind this is that there is only negligible management by the forest department and feeble enforced rules and regulations for use of forest resources. Presently, deforestation has exceeded its limit due to meager levels of annual tree plantation in the area around the park.

A proposed partnership would deal with this situation through campaigns and programs in this area with the help of volunteers, reforestation and tourist awareness mechanisms. Unsustainable forest cutting and downstream solid waste problems caused by uncontrolled tourism have serious effects on the local environment and biodiversity, so reintroducing traditional farming in an innovative way and developing the concept of agroforestry to create SEPLS in the area is the ultimate objective of this partnership.

The partnership would confront the current situation through land use reforms in agriculture and agroforestry, reintroducing traditional knowledge and experiences in farming, reforestation, providing better sanitation techniques, tourist awareness campaigns and cleanup activities. Further it would also help to control rapidly increasing deforestation and protect biodiversity in the area.

For the full write-up of the case study, please visit the IPSI webpage here.

IPSI Charter and Operational Guidelines

As was mentioned in the October 2014 IPSI Newsletter, two new documents were adopted as bases for IPSI's strategic development at the Fifth IPSI Global Conference (IPSI-5). These were the IPSI Charter and the IPSI Operational Guidelines. Both of these documents were created by revising and updating the previous IPSI Operational Framework, which they supersede. The following is a brief outline of the background and process of revision.

During the Sixth Meeting of the IPSI Steering Committee (SC-6) in September 2013, a variety of issues with the Operational Framework were discussed, including the need for greater flexibility and updating to reflect lessons learned since IPSI's establishment in 2010. At the suggestion of its Chair, the Steering Committee agreed at its Seventh Meeting (SC-7) in May 2014 to delegate the revision process to its Sub-Committee on Strategic Development. The Sub-Committee then went through several rounds of revision and eventually presented draft documents to the Steering Committee at its Eighth Meeting (SC-8) in October 2014. The Steering Committee then made further changes to the documents and submitted them for approval at the IPSI-5 Assembly in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea in October 2014, where they were adopted by general consensus of the Assembly.

The IPSI Charter and Operational Guidelines represent improvements over the Operational Framework they replace in several ways, while maintaining the same general principles on which the partnership was founded. The most obvious change is that there are now two separate documents, with the IPSI Charter containing general principles and rationale for IPSI, and the Operational Guidelines covering more practical aspects of the partnership's functioning. This change was made in order to both clarify IPSI's operational structure and to allow for greater flexibility as the partnership continues to grow and develop.

Other updates include:

  • Concepts of community resilience and climate change have been added to IPSI's major perspectives.
  • UNU-IAS is now specified as the location of the IPSI Secretariat until members should decide to relocate it.
  • Strategic goals from the approved IPSI Strategy have replaced activity clustering as guiding principles for IPSI activities.
  • "Other relevant materials" has been added to members' requirement to submit a case study within six months of joining IPSI, to accommodate members whose work does not result in case study reports per se.

The IPSI Secretariat is confident that these new documents will provide clearer and more effective guidance for the continuing strategic development of the partnership. If you have any questions or comments about the revision, please feel free to contact the Secretariat at any time.

The IPSI Charter and Operational Guidelines are available for download on the IPSI 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.