Join us at #WBF2024 for a captivating session that highlights endeavours aimed at enriching research, monitoring, and engagement to seamlessly integrate mountains into science-policy processes. Delve into a critical discourse on how these efforts align with the implementation of pivotal priorities established within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
The World Biodiversity Forum 2024 will take place on 16-21 June 2024 in Davos, Switzerland. This session is scheduled for Tuesday, 18 June, 14:30 – 16:00, in Room Sertig (Davos Congress Centre).
About the Session
At the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), the UN Secretary-General stated that Parties had the “urgent task of making peace with nature”, given how the world is losing its biodiversity at an alarming rate and with it the planet’s life-support systems. Mountains also shared a spotlight at COP15, with a high-level side event hosted by the UN Environment Programme and partners to not only highlight this plight for mountains but also raise these issues as part of the observance of the International Year for Sustainable Mountain Development in 2022.
The event highlighted efforts that prioritize mountain biodiversity and the need for its protection within the Post-2020 outcome and its implementation while giving insights on supporting science-policy processes and inputs that help substantiate those deliberations. COP15 concluded with the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which stipulates four overarching goals and a set of targets to be achieved by 2030. Implementing this framework also means mobilising resources and technical and scientific cooperation to close financial and capacity gaps between developed and developing countries.
So, what does this outcome mean for mountains and science-policy exchanges needed to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal GBF? Drawing from various cases at multiple scales, this session showcases actions that focus on enhancing research, monitoring, and engagement to help include mountains in science-policy processes, and critically discuss how these contribute to implementing key priorities set within the Kunming-Montreal GBF. Examples include the Convention on Biological Diversity Program of Work on Mountain Biodiversity and the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, as well as research providing policy-relevant knowledge on biodiversity-related opportunities for adaptive management of mountain ecosystems and sustainable development.
This session also invites additional contributions based on inter- and transdisciplinary research, either in mountains or other contexts that offer transferable insights relevant to mountains.
Conveners
- Carolina Adler, Mountain Research Initiative (MRI)
- Davnah Urbach, Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA)
- Matthias Jurek, UN Environment Programme
- Klaudia Kuras, UN Environment Programme
- Genevieve Schmoeker, UN Environment Programme
Key Dates and Deadlines
- Call for abstract submissions: 4 September 2023
- Extended abstract submission deadline: 26 November 2023
- Early bird registration opens: December 2023
- Presenter registration deadline: 14 February 2024
- WBF 2024 workshops, training, etc.: 16 June 2024
- WBF 2024 parallel sessions, plenaries: 17-20 June 2024
- WBF 2024 excursions: 21 June 2024
Cover image by: Albrecht Ehrensperger
