The topic of the event is the effect of climate change and its importance in our space and everyday life
What are the measurable impacts and changes in watermanagement, soil, pest control, variety use and in urban areas? Which are the social asspects of "climate anxety"? How can we measure the effects and mittigate them?

Date: 27th January 2023, 9 AM - 5 PM (registration starts 8:45
Venue: online (zoom)

INVITATION

Expert workshop „OECMs in Europe - The way forward“
20-24 February, 2023

at the International Academy for Nature Conservation Isle of Vilm, Germany

Dear Sir or Madam,

We cordially invite you to participate in the Expert Workshop “OECMs in Europe – The way forward”.

The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) together with the IUCN Regional Office for Europe are hosting a workshop on identifying Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in Europe. The workshop will be held on Vilm Island (Germany) from 20-24 February 2023.

The workshop is co-funded by the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection and WCPA.

PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO CIRCULATE THE INVITATION IN YOUR PROFESSIOAL NETWORKS.

Background of the workshop

OECMs were first mentioned in 2010 in Aichi Target 11, but it was not until 2018 at CBD COP14 that CBD Parties adopted a definition and criteria for OECMs. Subsequently IUCN/WCPA published guidance in 2019 on “Recognising and Reporting OECMs” and the WCPA OECM Specialist Group developed an assessment tool to help determine whether potential areas of important biodiversity meet the criteria of OECMs.

At CBD COP15 in December 2022 Parties agreed to protect at least 30% of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems by 2030 through effective networks of PAs and OECMs (GBF, Target 3). While there will be opportunities for establishing new protected areas, recognizing and maintaining areas that are already effective in protecting important biodiversity (OECMs) will be critical to achieving the 30% target.

The workshop will consider progress and needs for identifying OECMs in Europe. It will cover existing methodologies and test assessment tools in the context of different land and sea management prevalent across Europe. It is meant to support national authorities and other relevant organisations to make progress in identifying, reporting and supporting OECMs. The workshop will identify challenges and needs, including discussions on how OECMs fit with the European biodiversity strategy and relevant environmental regulations. Participants from the Caucasus and Central Asia are also welome.

Attached please find the preliminary agenda. All participants will be requested to bring case studies of potential OECMs from their regions to review during the workshop exercises.

Registration

Please register your participation in the workshop at https://www.bfn.de/en/events-ina/oecms-europe-02-2023 by 27 January 2023.

Please, note in the comments box whether

• you are a member of WCPA

• you need financial support towards your travel expenses or board and lodging on Vilm or both (for details see below).

We will try to strike a geographical and institutional balance within the limits of our budget. So, please wait for a confirmation of your participation before you purchase tickets.

Costs and financial support

Participants from EU countries (with a few exceptions), the UK, Norway and Switzerland are expected to cover their own expenses. BfN will cover board and lodging on Vilm for participants from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia as well as the Caucasus and Central Asia. Financial support towards travel costs (for economy class travel costs only) is only available for a limited number of participants from outside the EU. You are kindly asked to indicate your funding needs in the online registration form (in the box “comments”) and we will then let you know in how far funding is available in your case. Following your online registration, we will get back to participants with travel cost coverage needs, confirm what we could cover, and provide you with further information on travel booking and reimbursement. In any case, you would have to pay travel costs yourself and will only be reimbursed after or during the workshop.

Venue and travel information

The workshop will take place at the International Academy for Nature Conservation, Isle of Vilm, of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). The workshop language will be English.

The workshop will start in the evening of 20th February, 2023. In order to reach the last train and ferry to Vilm island that day, please look for flights arriving to Berlin airport not later than 12:00 o’clock (noon) on 20th February, 2023. The workshop will end in the evening of 23rd February, and participants will travel by train to Berlin airport or hotels either in the evening of 23rd Febraury or in the morning of 24th February. Therefore, please look for flights leaving Berlin airport either in the morning or after noon of 24th February. Attached you also find general travel information on how to get to Vilm.

Visa

In case you need a visa to enter the European Union I would like to ask you to start with visa application immediately after registration and contact Martina Finger at ina-org@bfn.de for a personalised invitation letter. She would also assist you if problems arise with the visa applica-tion. Those who require a visa, will also receive an explanatory letter to the German Embassy. Please submit this letter and the invitation to the Embassy in the course of the visa application. The visa should be issued from 19-25 February, 2023, which may be necessary due to the dates of your flights. Please notify the embassy about the fact, that you are exempted of paying a visa fee according to Aufenthaltsverordnung (AufenthV) zum Aufenthaltsgesetz (AufenthG).

Please, do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Gisela Stolpe, BfN

Erika Stanciu, Regional Vice-Chair WCPA Europe

Kathy MacKinnon, Co-Chair WCPA OECM specialist group

On the 30 December, there will be the Environment Council meeting where the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) will be the main agenda item.
The overall aim of the meeting is to get some positive messages about the NRL from Member States at this Council meeting stressing the importance of this law and welcoming the proposal, where the Council is made up of the member states' Ministers.
European Environmemtal Bureau has prepared materials you can use for the awarness raising actions of the NRL importance:

Feel free to attach some of the relevant position papers https://eeb.org/library/2022-regulation-on-nature-restoration-ngo-analysis/
, e.g. our main reaction paper, the peatland fact sheet https://eeb.org/library/fact-sheet-on-peatland-restoration/
, the food security fact sheet https://eeb.org/library/food-security-fact-sheet/
or the river restoration paper https://eeb.org/library/restoration-of-the-natural-connectivity-of-rivers-and-natural-functions-of-the-related-floodplains-in-the-nature-restoration-law/.

Communication package by EEB https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SwT1NSO_XgtubA54PHqUAmQ6bOFxQV-hGRpH_bpltZM/edit

Human pressure has severely affected European nature and climate in the past decades and it continues to do so. Science tells us that we need large-scale nature restoration in Europe to reverse biodiversity decline and increase our resilience against floods, droughts and other threats to our daily livelihoods and food security. As part of its Green Deal ambitions, the European Commission has published a proposal for a new European Legislation with binding nature restoration targets for Member States. This can be a real game-changer for nature and climate in Europe and the CEE region, if implemented in a timely and well-considered manner. However, several sectors (e.g. agriculture, forestry) and other actors are strongly opposing the law proposal, which so far resulted in publication delays and risks of weakening targets. As NGOs, we need to join forces, together with citizens and progressive companies, to counter these sectors` narratives and call our European and national decision makers to support an ambitious EU Nature Restoration Law.

During the webinar you will learn more about the ambition, process and improvements needed for the European Nature Restoration Law, why it is important for CEE countries and how we can work together. You are welcome to join us!

https://birdlife.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvce-oqzwqEtbHvgYPhbrPjKEUJVC71WRb

As the only one forestry university of Hungary, the Sopron University’s main researchers presented the topics of their institutions and departments, but each national related research centers were presented in the formulation of presentations.
The topics of the presentations:
- Institutes of forestry research
- Forest ecology
- Forest botany
- Forest breeding
- Forest management
- Forest protection
- Forest hydrology
Traditionally, agro-forestry and mixed farming is a transdisciplinary area of forest ecology, breeding, protection and management.

Photo by Rabné Emese, 15. 10. 2021.

Within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change) organized Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change Conference COP27 a session was dedicated to the role of women played in agroecological transition and in contrary agroecology’s role in gender equity. As all the speakers highlighted the crisis of agriculture, crisis of climate change, crises of societies can’t be handled without setting a transformative change of thinking about women role in the society, in the business and in nature protection, for example as the CGIAR led gender Impact Platform (https://gender.cgiar.org/) providing examples for best practices.

Small farms are still the backbone of many Member States’ rural economies, despite the efforts made over the 20th century to turn agriculture to more industrial and hoped for a more effective production structure, upscaling the environmental load of the sector to global crisis.
Meanwhile the traditional agribusiness of family farms survived in many countries and providing divers and considerable good quality products in a more circular management system, which is the traditional mixed farming management systems of the region.
In that context, a new micro-finance scheme in Romania using InvestEU for available translations of the preceding is helping to develop this key part of the EU’s agri-food sector.
https://eu-cap-network.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/small-farms-romanian-micro-finance-support-investeu-2022-10-25_en

InvestEU: https://enrd.ec.europa.eu/publications/investeu-offers-improved-investment-choices-cap-managing-authorities_en

FAO, leading the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’s Task Force on Best Practices, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Commission on Ecosystem Management, the Society for Ecological Restoration and Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry have released Principles for ecosystem restoration to guide the UN Decade 2021-2030 in five official UN languages.

Launched in English in September 2021 and now translated into Arabic, Chinese, French and Spanish, the principles for ecosystem restoration detail the essential tenets of ecosystem restoration that should be followed to maximize net gain for biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, and human health and well-being across all biomes, sectors and regions, which resonates with agroecological principles many objectives.

The ten principles covered in the publication state that good ecosystem restoration:

- contributes to global policy frameworks
- promotes fair and inclusive engagement
- includes a continuum of restorative activities
- aims to achieve the highest level of recovery for biodiversity and human well-being
- addresses the direct and indirect causes of degradation
- incorporates all types of knowledge
- sets well-defined ecological, cultural and socio-economic goals
- tailors activities to local and land/seascape contexts
- measures results and adapts actions
- integrates policies and measures that yield long-lasting impact.

Eurosite hosted the event on traditional grazing importance, which is some of the remnants of the "European indigenous knowledge" still exists in the Central-Eastern European region and seems to be the best practice for nature protection to preserve species-rich grassland.

Abstract:
Human activities and biodiversity often don’t go well along. But the species-rich secondary grasslands of Central and Eastern Europe, formed as a side product of low-intensity farming, are an example of the positive impact of human activities on ecosystem biodiversity.
Maintaining them in the face of agricultural and socio-economic change is the primary goal of current grassland conservation.
The webinar, given by three grassland scientists, demonstrated:
- the importance of a deep knowledge of local history and traditions that led to the formation of each particular grassland;
- the risks associated with substituting traditional grassland management practices with their modern analogies;
- the irreplaceable role of domestic animals in grassland conservation.
It highlighted how collaborating with farmers and herders, who still use approaches inspired by their ancestors (based on traditional ecological knowledge), avoids conflict and brings new insights into animal grazing behaviour for better management of species-rich grassland.

As a global approach of agroecology principles, Guerra and his research team published a global survey on soils conservation. As agriculture is dependent on first of all the soils' health, and its provided services, the exact knowledge is essential.

Abstract:
"Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems1. However, unlike for plants and animals, a global assessment of hotspots for soil nature conservation is still lacking2. This hampers our ability to establish nature conservation priorities for the multiple dimensions that support the soil system: from soil biodiversity to ecosystem services. Here, to identify global hotspots for soil nature conservation, we performed a global field survey that includes observations of biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) and functions (critical for six ecosystem services) in 615 composite samples of topsoil from a standardized survey in all continents. We found that each of the different ecological dimensions of soils—that is, species richness (alpha diversity, measured as amplicon sequence variants), community dissimilarity and ecosystem services—peaked in contrasting regions of the planet, and were associated with different environmental factors. Temperate ecosystems showed the highest species richness, whereas community dissimilarity peaked in the tropics, and colder high-latitudinal ecosystems were identified as hotspots of ecosystem services. These findings highlight the complexities that are involved in simultaneously protecting multiple ecological dimensions of soil. We further show that most of these hotspots are not adequately covered by protected areas (more than 70%), and are vulnerable in the context of several scenarios of global change. Our global estimation of priorities for soil nature conservation highlights the importance of accounting for the multidimensionality of soil biodiversity and ecosystem services to conserve soils for future generations."

Guerra, C.A., Berdugo, M., Eldridge, D.J. et al. Global hotspots for soil nature conservation. Nature (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x