The Preparation of the Global City and Biodiversity Outlook launched

Montreal, 15 September 2011 – In the context of the Second Meeting on the Implementation of the Plan of Action on Sub-National Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities on Biodiversity, held in Bonn, Germany, from 4 to 6 September 2011, Stockholm University (SU), through the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on the preparation of the first edition of the Global City and Biodiversity Outlook to be submitted to the second Summit on Cities and Biodiversity to be held in Hyderabad, India on 15-16 October 2012 just prior to the High Level Segment of the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The City and Biodiversity Outlook will present the status of biodiversity in urban area highlighting best practices and lessons learned on urbanisation and biodiversity.

The MoC was signed in Bonn on 6 September 2011 by the Executive Secretary of the Convention, Ahmed Djoghlaf, by the Vice-Chancellor of Stockholm University, Kåre Bremer, SRC Director, Johan Rockström and SRC professor, Dr. Thomas Elmqvist. The ceremony took place with the participation of the Mayor of Bonn, Jogen Nimptsch.

Dr. Elmqvist said: “Due to our inter-disciplinary approach towards governance of social-ecological systems, the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been fully involved with the CBD initiative on cities and biodiversity since 2008. SRC is proud to be at the forefront of this process to manage biodiversity and ecosystem services sustainably in the urban context. We’re confident that, with the support of the Global Partnership, we will produce essential knowledge needed to steer urban development onto a sustainable path. By linking a more extensive scientific version of the City Biodiversity Outlook to its policy-making synthesis, we’re emphasizing one of the most valuable characteristics of the Convention: groundbreaking science supporting strategic decision-making.”

Ahmed Djoghlaf said: “The City and Biodiversity Outlook will be a major tool to monitor the implementation of the Singapore Urban Biodiversity Index, now implemented in more than 50 cities. In a more and more urbanized planet, this major publication will bring the message to the people of the world that the battle for life on Earth will be won or lost in the cities and confirm the wisdom of the former Mayor of Curitiba, Jaime Lerner, who said that cities are not the problem but part of the solution.” The First Summit on Cities and Biodiversity held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010 with the participation of more than 650 municipality representatives, including 200 mayors, finalized a plan of action on cities and biodiversity which was subsequently endorsed by the 18,500 participants in the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties. In endorsing this plan of action the 193 Parties and their partners requested the Executive Secretary to prepare an assessment of the links and opportunities between urbanization and biodiversity based on the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook for the consideration of the Conference of the Parties at its eleventh meeting, to be held in 2012.

For more information: www.cbd.int\authorities

The Stockholm Resilience Centre: www.stockholmresilience.org
The Global Partnership on Local and Sub-National Action for Biodiversity: www.cbd.int/authorities