January 2015 - Global Change Ecology

National interests cause tension while revising the African Regional Assessment

On Thursday, the 15th of January 2015, after the plenary meeting, the delegates divided into their regional groups (e.g. Americas, Europe, Africa) to draft the regional assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services. I was particularly interested in hearing African points of view, since I know Africa contains many biomes and high biodiversity, but its climate […]

IPBES impressions– a lot of word picking and old conflicts

One of the first plenary meetings we, the new GCE arrivals, attended was a session of the contact group for the IPBEs work programme, which was originally planned as a joint meeting with the contact group for budget and finance. After an initial discussion about general structures and procedures of the thematic and geographic working […]

GCE at IPBES-3: An enthusiastic delegation of Observers arrives in Bonn!

In GCE, we talk a lot about the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and how frustrating it is that these issues are often not prioritized in international politics. Yet, as students, we too have difficulties finding time to prioritize actual engagement with these issues while also juggling extra courses, guest lectures, and research. But […]