International news

On 21 March 2015 the CBD Secretariat and the Korea Forest Service signed a Memorandum of Understanding for implementation of the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative.

This year, as we celebrate the International Day of Forests under the theme of "Forests and Climate Change," we need to also look at the crucial and direct contribution of forests and forest biodiversity to the mitigation and adaption to climate change.

This year's World Water Day theme, "Water and sustainable development", coincides with the ongoing discussions in the United Nations of the post-2015 development agenda and the adoption of a set of new sustainable development goals and targets expected later this year.

Statement of Mr. Braulio F. De Souza Dias, Executive Secretary on the Occasion of Beyond Enforcement: Communities, Governance, Incentives And Sustainable Use in Combating Illegal Wildlife Trade, 26 February 2015, Muldersdrift, South Africa

The Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) today launched the Bushmeat Sourcebook, an online resource, on the occasion of the second World Wildlife Day. The sourcebook examines bushmeat's vital contribution to food security, local livelihoods, and other aspects of human well-being in many parts of the world. It also shows, however, how unsustainable harvesting can affect the ecological stability of forest ecosystems, as well as human health.

With Denmark's ratification on 25 February, the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety has received 75% of the necessary ratifications, with only 11 more ratifications needed for it to enter into force.

This year, International Women's Day highlights the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that twenty years' after its adoption remains an essential roadmap for the achievement of gender equality and women's rights.

The fourth addition of Global Biodiversity Outlook is now available in Japanese, courtesy of the Nature Conservation Bureau of Japan's Ministry of the Environment. This brings to eight the number of languages in which the mid-term assessment of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 is available.

On World Wildlife Day, as we seek to work to combat illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products, let us look at ways to combine enforcement with empowerment, and therefore protect the "Future we Want," a future of life in harmony with nature.

Statement by Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, CBD Executive Secretary, at the opening of the Sustainable Ocean Initiative (SOI) Capacity-Building Workshop for South America, Lima, Peru, 23 February 2015