BENELEX at Cambridge Conservation Initiative Expert Meeting

On 10-12 April, BENELEX PI Elisa Morgera was invited to contribute to the ‘Cambridge Conservation Initiative Expert Meeting: Framing the Future for Biodiversity' to provide inputs into a new global biodiversity framework to succeed the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets. The workshop provided an opportunity to discuss the extent to which data, science, information and knowledge have been effectively used in developing targets and addressing them. Outputs from the expert meeting were shared with governments and other stakeholders at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in July 2018 in Montreal, Canada, when governments debated the process for negotiating a post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The expert meeting’s results included the evidence base that is needed, the types of evidence that currently exist, and gaps in evidence or mechanisms for delivering it with regard to:

• the pathways that will lead us to (or away from) the 2050 Vision already agreed by governments;
• the scale and possible mixes of policies that are going to get us on these pathways;
• the policy instruments and tools that will be most effective in delivering these policies;
• the framework (targets) that would motivate such policies and interventions being put in place; and
• the monitoring, indicators, and reporting that would promote implementation and accountability.

Prof Morgera was also invited to attend a panel discussion with Sir David Attenborough, the CBD Executive Secretary, and heads of environmental NGOs. Watch a recording of the discussion here.

Research-led teaching

Prof Morgera directs the LLM in Global Environmental Law and Governance, which also benefits from research findings from the BeneLex project. For more information on SCELG’s work on biodiversity and human rights:

• watch the video of Prof Morgera’s presentation on “Human rights and natural resources: the relevance of the Convention on Biological Diversity” (1:09:41);
• watch the webinar with Prof Morgera’s presentation on human rights and biodiversity;
• listen to the podcast of Prof Morgera’s lecture at Oxford University on benefit-sharing and indigenous peoples’ rights; and
• watch the video of Prof Morgera’s lecture on compliance with the CBD, as part of a course organized by the UN Environment Programme.