October 2013: The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has concluded a series of regional consultations, for which the reports are now available. The consultations were held in Nairobi, Kenya (Africa region), Budapest, Hungary (Eastern Europe region), Sao Paolo, Brazil (Latin American and the Caribbean region), Leipzig, Germany (Pan-European Stakeholder group) and Ramsar City, Iran (Asia region).

The consultations aimed at: strengthening and focusing regional inputs to the IPBES Work Programme 2014-2018, with an emphasis on a strong programme of capacity building in the region; strengthening regional participation in the IPBES intersessional process on other issues; developing an active network of institutions contributing to IPBES work and related capacity building in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Pan-European region, and Latin America and the Caribbean; and identifying possible partnerships between institutions and/or governments to strengthen sub-regional and regional biodiversity and ecosystem services assessments, as well as knowledge generation, within the IPBES framework.

Some of the highlights from the reports include: at the Africa regional consultations, the importance of resource mobilization was stressed; at the Eastern Europe regional consultation, participants emphasized that the IPBES work programme should be based on a clear, preferably simple, conceptual framework that reflects the difference between value and economic value, since biodiversity cannot be measured by economics alone; at the Latin America and the Caribbean meeting it was noted that one of the objectives should be to enhance the enabling environment for the knowledge-policy interface in order to implement key functions of IPBES; and in Asia, the meeting focused on various aspects of regional input and communications.

The second plenary, IPBES-2, to which the regional reports will serve as inputs, will be held on 9-14 December 2013, Antalya, Turkey. [IPBES-2 documents] [Publication: Report of the 2nd Asian Regional Meeting on IPBES]