UNEP’s Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) office is to host an expert workshop that will feed into a study aimed at raising awareness of the dependency of agriculture and food on natural capital.

A ‘TEEB for Agriculture & Food’ (TEEBAgFood) study, led by the UNEP TEEB Office, will seek to bring together economists, business leaders, agriculturalists and experts in biodiversity and ecosystems to provide a comprehensive economic evaluation of the ‘eco-agri-food systems’ complex. The study will seek to demonstrate that the economic environment in which farmers operate is distorted by significant externalities, both negative and positive, and a lack of awareness of dependency on natural capital.

The workshop, to be held on 8-11 September in Brussels’ Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, aims to accomplish a number of objectives that will allow the office to continue building the key foundations for this work.

For more information please contact: alexa.froger@unep.org

UNEP’s Regional Office for Europe is organising a capacity-building workshop on ‘Strengthening synergies and indicators in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP)’ for Central Asian, Eastern European and Southern Caucasus countries.

The workshop will take place by Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul lake on the week of 7 September 2015 and is organised in partnership with UNEP-WCMC and WWF Russia, with support from the State Agency of Environment Protection and Forestry of the Kyrgyz Republic.

The meeting will be the first of two capacity-building workshops on indicators organised as part of the ‘Strengthening synergies and indicators in NBSAPs for the Pan-European region’ project financed by the European Commission. The objectives for this first workshop are to:

• Obtain an improved understanding of key concepts, steps and best practices in developing NBSAP impact indicators;
• Identify and agree sub-regional commonalities in terms of indicators, capacity development needs and support actions to be developed in the pan-European regional workshop;
• Agree upon the indicators to be worked on as a sub-region, the activities to be carried out and outputs;
• Build skills and confidence in developing and using indicators as part of updating and implementing NBSAP.

Please get in touch with Alexa Froger for more details: alexa.froger@unep.org

The Third Preparatory Committee to the Sixth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Tehran Convention is scheduled to meet on 13-14 October.

In a back-to-back meeting, governments will also negotiate the Draft Protocol on Monitoring, Reporting, Assessment, Access to and Exchange of Information on 15-16 October.

UNEP administers the Secretariat of the Convention and assists Contracting Parties with its implementation and in developing and negotiating ancillary protocols.

The sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the Convention will furthermore take place on 18-20 November. All three meetings will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Tehran Convention aims to protect and preserve the Caspian Sea and its natural resources. The full list of planned meetings can be viewed here.

For further information: daniel.nixdorf@unep.org

UNEP is among partners hosting the fourth edition of the European Week of Bees and Pollinators, which will between 30 September and 1 October 2015 focus on the dialogue and collaboration needed for strong public policies to protect the health of the insects.

A high-level conference will take place organised by the European Parliament’s Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development Intergroup. His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, whose Foundation leads the fight for protecting biodiversity and in particular the protection of wild bees, will be attending the event for the second time.

For more information please click here
or contact Alexa Froger alexa.froger@unep.org