Call for nominations for IPBES expert groups

Posted by on Feb 1, 2014 in News, Nominations | 0 comments

IPBES is no longer accepting nominations for this call. 

Established in 2012, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), is a global program intended to strengthen the role of science in decision-making related to the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. IPBES is seeking involvement from a broad community of natural and social scientists, and the U.S. government is encouraging U.S. scientists to join in the work of IPBES. In response, as part of our ongoing interdisciplinary Earth Stewardship Initiative, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is assisting the government in encouraging engagement of U.S. scientists in IPBES.

At its December 2013 Plenary, IPBES established multiple Expert Groups for which it is seeking nominations from governments and other stakeholders. To assist in this process, ESA invites the leadership of professional societies, nongovernmental organizations, and other groups to send nominations to our Office of Science Programs, where they will be collated and forwarded to U.S. government representatives to IPBES.

The IPBES work plan is described here, and sections of it are referenced below.

The five Expert Groups for which ESA is collecting nominations are as follows:

  • Deliverable 2a: Expert Group to develop a guide on production and integration of assessments from and across all scales. Initial meeting week of 5 May 2014. See Objective 2 of the work plan for more detail.
  • Deliverable 3a: Expert Group for delivering an assessment on pollinators, pollination, and food production. Initial authors meeting week of 30 June 2014. See Objective 3 and Annex V of the work plan for more detail.
  • Deliverable 3c: Expert Group for scoping and delivering a methodological assessment and development of a guide on scenario analysis and modeling of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Scoping meeting week of 28 April 2014. See Annex VI of the work plan for more detail.
  • Deliverable 3d: Expert Group for scoping of a methodological assessment and development of a guide regarding diverse conceptualization of values of biodiversity and nature’s benefits to people in including ecosystem services. Scoping meeting week of 28 April 2014. See Objective 3 of the work plan for more detail.
  • Deliverable 4c: Expert Group to develop a guide on and a catalog of policy support tools and methodologies. Initial meeting week of 5 May 2014. See Objective 4 of the work plan for more detail.

The letter inviting nominations, which also includes several task forces outside the scope of ESA’s effort, can be viewed here.

The deadline for governments to submit nominations to IPBES is short, by 28 February 2014. In order for ESA to collate and forward nominations to the U.S. government, we are requesting nominations no later than 21 February 2014. We will not be able to include nominations received after that date in our submission. We recognize that this is a very challenging schedule, but believe U.S. engagement in IPBES is important and hope that you will encourage qualified individuals to volunteer for one or more of these assessments. Please forward this information to anyone you feel appropriate.

To be nominated, volunteers must do the following:

  1. Fill out the nomination form to indicate the Expert Group in which you are interested. If you are interested in more than one Expert Group, you must fill in a separate form for each. Please note the initial meeting dates carefully: those volunteering as participants (other than reviewers) need to be available on those dates. Further, at this time, there is no U.S. government support for travel costs to meetings.
  2. Email the form and a short c.v. to ipbes@esa.org. Please strictly follow the file naming conventions described in the form.

Deadline: February 21, 2014

If you have any questions, please email them to ipbes@esa.org.

Thank you for your interest and support of this important international effort.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Sellers, USGS.

 

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