Biodiversity Conservation, Ecosystem Services and Poverty Reduction – Shaping a New Agenda
Workshop September 17th to 21st 2009

The global economic crisis shocked the world earlier this year. Many governments have responded with immense, unprecedented economic stimulus and support pro-grams to avoid increasing unemployment and poverty. It is well known today that poverty impacts on the environment and increasing ecosystem degradation aggravates poverty. The loss of biodiversity is the central element in this vicious circle.

In 2010 the world will celebrate the UN International Year of Biodiversity and the theme of next year’s International Day on Biodiversity is “biodiversity for development and poverty alleviation”. Besides, the Convention on Biological Diversity, at its 10th Conference of the Parties, to be held in Nagoya, Japan in October next year, will adopt a new Strategic Plan. The plan will influence conservation policies of 191 member states for the period 2011 to 2022. One of the issues the plan will tackle is related to the importance of biodiversity for poverty reduction and the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals, taking into account that conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity should contribute to poverty reduction at local level and not harm the livelihoods of the poor.

These upcoming occasions would gain from further inputs by interested individuals and organizations. In order to elaborate suitable inputs the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), as part of the Steering Group on Linking Conservation and Poverty Reduction, would like to invite you to a workshop titled “Biodiversity Conservation, Ecosystem Services and Poverty Reduction – Shaping a New Agenda”. The workshop will be held at BfN’s International Academy for Nature Conservation on the Isle of Vilm, Germany, September 17th to 21st. It is the 4th workshop in a series of events on the Isle of Vilm that deals with linking conservation and poverty reduction. This year’s workshop specifically aims to develop inputs for ongoing discussions in the context of biodiversity and poverty, which include the specification of a clear conceptual framework and the identification of indicators. These will be discussed on the basis of case studies.

A detailed program will be provided in time, suggestions and proposals for inputs are welcomed.

Limited funding for cost reimbursement might be available for participants.

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