Prof Elisa Morgera, Director of the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance (SCELG), has been awarded an international consultancy from the International Development Law Organization, in cooperation with the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The consultancy aims to prepare a Legal Assessment Tool methodology to assist countries in assessing their legal preparedness for mainstreaming biodiversity in various sectors, as well as in the agricultural sector specifically.
Biodiversity mainstreaming is an essential action required to support human well-being, resilience, innovation and environmental sustainability. The CBD establishes an international obligation to integrate the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies, and also into national decision-making. Following a series of international decisions on biodiversity mainstreaming adopted in 2016 by the 196 CBD Parties, the consultancy is part of renewed global efforts to fill gaps in practical tools. It undertakes an inclusive process to design and pilot a framework for substantive identification of legal opportunities and bottlenecks at the national level and for mutual learning. The Legal Development Tools will be peer-reviewed by representatives of the CBD Secretariat, the UN Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, SwedBio, and the governments of Cambodia, Norway and Sweden.
