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Tuesday 12 February 2013

IPBES and Strategy - BoD Meeting in Rome, Day 2

The Board meeting continued on Saturday and Sunday in (sunny but cold) Rome.

The current progress in IPBES was discussed among the Board following a  report by Bege Jonsson and Guy Peer  (involved in the IPBES process from SCB-ES). As the IPBES is finally launched, professional societies as SCB should find the more effective ways to promote and ensure scientific input into the process. The Society's contribution depends heavily on  the expertise of its professional membership as its greatest resource. The knowledge and professional input from members should be therefore channeled effectively into the IPBES process. András Báldi, president of the Section was elected into the IPBES Multidisciplinary Expert Panel (as an independent expert among the 25 members), which is expected to help to strenghten the position of the scientific community in the process.

Discussion on IPBES and strategy
The next European Congress will be held in 2015, possible locations were discussed. The Board expressed its strong wish to be able to comment the bids as soon as possible in order to ensure  that the Section's considerations are taken into account at the beginning of the planning - based on the lessons learnt from Glasgow, ECCB2012.

The rest of the board meeting was revolving around the Section strategy. The Board started to formulate the Section strategy for the coming years. This document should be embedded in the SCB global strategy but has to highlight and detail the specific European aspects. It was agreed that the uniqueness of the European  landscapes (their high natural and social diversity, the rich history of human land-use all over the continent), our prosperity as Europeans (we after all belong to the richer part of the human population) entrust us with a great responsibility for conserving biodiversity both in a European and also in a global scale. It was also noted  during the discussions that promotion of transdisciplinarity and sustainability through the Section's work is also a high priority to be endorsed in the strategy.

After the intense and tiring agenda, the Board headed for a sightseeing in the centre of Rome. While walking in the streets of one of the largest European cities founded more than two and a half thousand years ago, the specific perspective and challenge of SCB-ES work becomes more apparent: to maintain and restore biodiversity in a continent with such a long history of human impact on ecosystems.


1 comment:

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Obviously this was grate meeting and the committee member give lot of time to discuss their problems. So i think it should be success and people find good declaration from this meeting.