The meeting on Biodiversity after Johannesburg, organized by the Equator Initiative, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), The Nature Conservancy, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), convened from 2-4 March 2003 in London, UK.

Participants discussed the links between biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable development and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was the first of two meetings in London dealing with the linkages between biodiversity and sustainable development. Over 160 participants, representing governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, academia and the private sector discussed these issues in plenary and in working group sessions.
The plenary sessions provided an overview of the MDGs and biodiversity mandates arising from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), and the Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity (WEHAB) framework. To explore the interaction between biodiversity and the MDGs, participants convened in four working groups to discuss: poverty, hunger and biodiversity; health and biodiversity; water, sanitation, urban poverty and biodiversity; and MDG 8 on developing a global partnership for development. The final plenary summarized the meeting’s recommendations, which will contribute to the second meeting on “Biodiversity after Johannesburg” and to the UN Millennium Project. The Sustainable Developments report outlining these discussions in detail can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/linkages/sd/sdund/