IPBES, governments, and stakeholders: Bridging the divide between science and policy

Background/Question/Methods

The Intergovernmental Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is proposed to develop ongoing assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services at multiple scales.  IPBES is loosely modeled after the IPCC, with IPBES providing science-bases assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services that would feed into the policy needs of national governments and other partners.  As currently proposed, IPBES is meant to provide an ongoing, government based institutionalization of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity.  The express goal of IPBES is to increase the communication between the scientific community and policy makers and perhaps as importantly strengthen the use of science policy development and implementation.  In addition to completion of assessments of biodiversity and ecosystems services, IBPES is expected to catalyze the generation of new knowledge surrounding biodiversity and ecosystem services, provide access to policy development tools and develop a capacity building program in support of ongoing assessments.  Additionally IPBES would provide the opportunity to assess themes (such as biofuels, alternative energy, etc…) along with the identification of new topics (e.g. geoengineering) for assessment.  The second session of the first plenary emphasis is on development of the work program and rules of procedures, which would among other things, develop criteria for participation of the independent science community.    

Results/Conclusions

The goal of this talk is to update the outcomes of the mid-April plenary session of the IPBES meeting, outline the next steps for engagement of the science community and provide a perspective of the way forward in actually implementing IPBES.  Further, I will outline the expectations for participation in successfully implementing IPBES.