Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) are managed areas that are voluntarily conserved by local or indigenous communities for conservation and cultural purposes. This handbook is intended as a guide for those who wish to learn about ICCAs and the newly developed ICCA Registry tool, which aims to develop awareness, recognition and documented values of ICCAs through a community-supported database, maps and an interactive, multimedia website. Communities who govern and manage ICCAs will find this handbook particularly helpful to understand how they can contribute to and benefit from the Registry if they wish. This handbook adheres to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and supports the application of bio-cultural community protocols in maintaining the integrity of community knowledge and resources.
Resource Type: ReportsThis report documents and analyses good practice examples of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Europe. Case studies on ecosystem-based approaches to mitigation involved peatland restoration or conservation (11 projects) and forest conservation, restoration and reforestation (2 projects). Case studies on ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation were divided into inland waters (28 projects), coastal zone (10 projects), agriculture and forestry (11 projects) and cities (9 projects).
Resource Type: ReportsUNEP-WCMC has been providing technical support to the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on biodiversity and climate change. We carried out three reviews of the recent scientific literature and these fed into the deliberations of the CBD’s Second Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Biodiversity and Climate Change. These reviews, entitled Links between Biodiversity and Climate change: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation, have now been published as no 42 of the CBD Technical Series. This publication complements the main report from the CBD AHTEG which appears as CBD Technical Series No. 41 Connecting Biodiversity and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.
Resource Type: ReportsA new, systematic review of the evidence on the effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation (EbA) has been carried out to review the effectiveness of EbA and highlight the knowledge gaps. This research was undertaken as a collaboration between BirdLife International, UNEP-WCMC, IIED and the University of Cambridge.
Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation (EbA) integrate the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services into an overall strategy for helping people adapt to climate change. To date, however, insight into these approaches has often been based on anecdotal case studies of local people’s use of ecosystems. Although they are informative, they can provide rather limited insight in terms of measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of EbA, especially compared with technical or structural adaptation measures. A new, systematic review of EbA evidence has been carried out to interrogate the scientific literature and review studies from around the world, from many different ecosystems and adopting a wide range of adaptation approaches utilising ecosystems. We conclude that EbA approaches are effective and deserve greater policy attention and political support to reach their full potential.
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