Programme Administration Assistant – Six month fixed term position
Species Programme
Salary £12,104 - £19,797

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UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) will be showcasing plans for a new on-line portal at the 16th Meeting of the Conference of Parties to CITES (CoP) in Thailand from 3–14 March. The new integrated species information platform, known as Species+, will enable Parties to search CITES species lists and databases of legal trade in CITES-listed species more quickly and interactively than ever before, when complete.

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Scientists from Microsoft Research and the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) are developing the first general-purpose computer model of whole ecosystems, across the entire world. In a recent Nature article (Time to Model all Life on Earth), the authors argue that this type of model could radically improve our understanding of the biosphere and inform policy decisions about biodiversity and conservation.

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An increase in the amount of land being used for crops is one of the main reasons for the continuing loss of biodiversity and threatens to undermine attempts to meet international environmental goals, according to a new report involving scientists from the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).

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The SEED Initiative is inviting tenders to run the SEED Awards: 2013-2014 cycle.

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As part of its UN-REDD Programme work, the workshop “REDD+ Beyond Carbon: Safeguards and Multiple Benefits” organised by UNEP-WCMC on behalf of UNEP took place in Cambridge last month. Participants discussed applying REDD+ safeguards in country, the quantification, valuation and mapping of multiple benefits, and monitoring the impacts of REDD+ on ecosystem services and biodiversity. Presentations from the workshop, and the report detailing the key findings are available here.

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UNEP-WCMC, with the financial support of the UN-REDD programme, has written a paper on biodiversity monitoring for REDD+ published in the journal "Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability" this week. The paper observes the following three challenge to biodiversity monitoring for REDD+: choosing which aspects of biodiversity to monitor, the difficulty of attributing particular changes to REDD+ and the likely scarcity of resources for biodiversity monitoring. It proposes three responses which may address these challenges: 1) agreed policy targets that identify what should be monitored; 2) making links to existing biodiversity monitoring and to monitoring to estimate GHG emissions and removals; and 3) developing clear theories of change to assist in determining which changes in biodiversity can be attributed to REDD+. The paper is available on the journal website here.

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On behalf of the UN-REDD Programme, UNEP-WCMC would like to announce an upcoming invitation only workshop on REDD+ safeguards and multiple benefits. Participants will discuss applying REDD+ safeguards in country, the quantification, valuation and mapping of multiple benefits, and monitoring the impacts of REDD+ on ecosystem services and biodiversity.

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We are delighted to announce that our 2011 Annual Report is now available.

   “If we are to make our future on this planet sustainable, a strong science-policy interface is critical. It is here that UNEP-WCMC is vital.”

Achim Steiner,
UNEP Executive Director and UN Under-Secretary-General
 

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