The RLE was part of the discussion at the SSUNGA77 presenting its advancements in Latin America

The role and contribution of science to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was a central theme of the Science Summit at the 77th UNGA. The objective was to develop and launch science collaborations to demonstrate global science mechanisms and activities to support the attainment of the UN SDGs, Agenda 2030 and Local2030. Within this major event, a  Global Biodiversity Day was organized featuring lively discussions on the status of some specific standards and frameworks developed to provide tools and inform actions, policies and decisions to reverse biodiversity loss globally, including the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems.  

Healthy functional ecosystems and the biodiversity they entail, are crucial for supporting their services which are in themselves fundamental for meeting the global goals and guaranteeing a collective wellness.  In this sense, the use of the Red List of Ecosystems framework plays a crucial role for determining the level of risk and integrity of the world’s ecosystems to inform management and conservation planning or policies. Serving also to raise awareness about the main threats to ecosystems and the resulting impacts on human well-being, as well as to demonstrate how improved ecosystem management can reduce risks, enhance resilience, and promote adaptation.

Since its adoption as the standard in 2014, over 4,000 ecosystems have been assessed around the world. Latin America has been one of the leading regions in its application; a diversity of ecosystems has been assessed from coral reefs to cloud forests to coastal dunes in this megadiverse part of the world. These assessments have captured both data rich and data scarce ecosystems, and have been conducted in a variety of institutional settings and geographic scales. 

Our session, held in Spanish, began with an introductory video by Emily Nicholson, co-lead of the IUCN RLE thematic group in CEM and was moderated by Marcos Valderrabano, Programme Manager of the RLE. A panel of Latin American experts then discussed the progress so far of ecosystems risk assessments and the main lessons learned from their experience utilizing this tool for different approaches, making emphasis on the opportunities and challenges for the application of RLE to inform the post 2020 biodiversity framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Here you can access the recording of this event: IUCN Red List of Ecosystems: opportunities and challenges to support the post 2020 GBF and the SDG

 

Written by: Susana Barreto