IPSI Newsletter, May 2018

2018.05.30

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, we would like to announce that the Seventh IPSI Global Conference (IPSI-7) will be held in September-October this year. Another important announcement is that we recently welcomed 10 new members to the IPSI partnership. This month's newsletter also contains a report from this year's IPSI Case Study Workshop and a reminder of some calls for nominations and review from IPBES and the recent Call for Proposals for SDM 2018. We are also pleased to share one of our more recent case studies, from Shumei International.

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

The Seventh IPSI Global Conference (IPSI-7)

We are very pleased to announce that the IPSI Secretariat will organize the Seventh Global Conference of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI-7) to be held in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan from 30 September – 2 October 2018, hosted by the Ishikawa Prefectural Government.

During IPSI-7, we are expecting to share and exchange opinions and ideas on IPSI’s roadmap toward the conclusion of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and post-2020 processes. We hope to examine how IPSI has been working toward our objectives as well as contributing to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It is expected that IPSI-7 will contribute to the first draft of a publication compiling the work of IPSI in the Decade and other outputs looking toward 2020 and beyond.

At this time, registration has been opened for IPSI members only using the online registration form here. Any non-IPSI members who plan to attend, please wait for further announcements about registration. The deadline for registration for IPSI members is Monday 4 June 2018.

Further information will be made available as we get closer to the event. For updates, please keep an eye on the event page on the IPSI website here.

IPSI welcomes 10 new members

We are pleased to announce that at in May 2018, the IPSI Steering Committee confirmed 10 new member organizations, bringing IPSI’s total membership to 230 organizations. It is therefore our pleasure to welcome:

• Fuli Farmers Association (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Chinese Taipei)

• Greenglobe Ghana (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Ghana)

• “Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy” Public Foundation (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Kyrgyzstan)

• Marine Ecosystems Protected Areas (MEPA) Trust (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Antigua and Barbuda)

• Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Mongolia (National governmental organization, Mongolia)

• National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (Academic, educational and/or research institute, Chinese Taipei)

• Policy for Sustainability Lab of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (Academic, educational and/or research institute, China)

• Save Aseed For The Future (SAFE) (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Uganda)

• “Satoyama Initiative” NGO (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Mongolia)

• Wildlife Conservation Society Madagascar (Non-governmental or civil society organization, Madagascar)

The new members, in addition to being involved in valuable projects in their own right, also help to increase IPSI’s strength by expanding our representation in regions around the world. We look forward to collaborating closely with all of them in promoting the concept of the Satoyama Initiative in the future.

IPSI Case Study Workshop in Tokyo, Japan

A workshop was held by the IPSI Secretariat from 22 to 24 May 2018 at the United Nations University Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan as part of the process toward the publication of the fourth volume of the “Satoyama Initiative Thematic Review” (SITR vol. 4). The theme of this year’s workshop was “Sustainable use of biodiversity in socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) and its contribution to effective area-based conservation”, covering how the sustainable use of biodiversity as practiced in well-managed SEPLS can contribute to effective area-based conservation of biodiversity.

The objective of the workshop was to share case studies among the SITR vol. 4 authors and get feedback on their manuscripts for further improvement. Participants shared a wealth of opinions and suggestions about how a variety of SEPLS management practices and approaches can contribute to both area-based conservation and human livelihoods, taking lessons from IPSI case studies from around the world.

The SITR vol. 4 is planned for publication later this year, and will have the same theme as the workshop, including write-ups of the case studies presented and a synthesis paper aimed at bringing together the various projects and extracting lessons learned.

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

IPBES Assessment Calls for Nomination and Review

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has a number of calls for nominations and review out at the moment, and IPSI members and friends are highly encouraged to take part in any of these processes as appropriate.

First, there is the call for nominations for experts and fellows for the IPBES assessment of "the diverse conceptualization of multiple values of nature and its benefits" and the assessment of "the sustainable use of wild species".Expertise of candidates should match the needs of one of the two assessments, and be in line with the themes and skills required in the chapters of their respective scoping documents. More information can be found in the announcement on the IPBES website here and here.

Second, IPBES recently announced the second external review of the global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Comments are being accepted until 29 June 2018 for the assessment chapters, and 9 July 2018 for the summary for policymakers. As mentioned in our announcement of the first external review, the assessment “will be the first global snapshot of the state of the world’s biodiversity in more than a decade, since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.” For more information and to register to take part in the review, please see the announcement on the IPBES website here.

[Reminder] Call for Proposals: SDM 2018

We would like to gently remind readers of the call for proposals for the Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM) 2018, which was recently sent out through this mailing list.

The Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM) has been established by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOEJ) in order to facilitate further implementation of activities that support the Satoyama Initiative.

Around six projects that fall under any of four SDM project types will be selected, and will be provided with a maximum support of approximately 10,000 USD for their implementation. Please submit project proposals to the SDM Secretariat by email at sdm@iges.or.jp. The deadline for applications is Friday, 20 July, 2018.

Eligibility for applicants is for IPSI member organizations only. Proposals for implementing IPSI collaborative activities will be highly welcomed. Please refer to the IGES website here for further details.

Recent Case Study: Shumei International

The IPSI Secretariat recently received a case study from partner organization Shumei International, based in Japan, titled “Natural Agriculture in Zambia: Empowering Farmers, Strengthening Communities, and Regenerating Ecosystems".

This project demonstrated the effectiveness of ecological agriculture and sustainable land management in improving the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and protecting local ecosystems. In its first phase, the project directly benefited twenty small-scale farm families with in-depth training. The newly acquired skills were shared with the wider women farmers’ cooperative as part of the train-the-trainer approach. As a result, women farmers were able to reduce their expenditures for costly agro-chemical inputs and increase their farms’ resilience. In its current phase, the project benefits the co-operative’s 3,000 members and an additional 2,000 farmers in surrounding districts. Overall the project serves as a cost-effective ecological farming model for co-operatives and has grown into a comprehensive program, both in terms of beneficiaries and participating communities as well as program activities and objectives.

For more information, please see the full write-up of the case study 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.