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Discussions at the UNCCD 2nd Scientific Conference continued on Wednesday, 10 April 2013, with delegates convening in parallel sessions and one plenary. Morning parallel sessions addressed: the New World Atlas of Desertification contributing to economic valuation of land degradation; good practices in sustainable land management (SLM) and lessons learned; economics of land use change; toward an analytical framework to assess the value of action and inaction against land degradation; identification and valuation of ecosystem services and economic and social impacts of DLDD at a local scale.
During the plenary session, Lene Poulsen, Karl International Development, presented White Paper II, “Costs and benefits of policies and practices addressing desertification, land degradation and drought,” including its recommendations for how to focus future research. Cesar Morales Estupinan, University of Chile, provided an overview of various studies supported by GIZ and FAO exploring the costs of action and inaction on DLDD in the Latin America and Caribbean region. Hannah Behrendt, Global Partnership for Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES), discussed the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA), which was adopted as an international standard in 2012, as a flexible methodology for integrating economic and environmental accounting. Richard Thomas, UN University, presented an analysis of decision making for SLM and noted the need for a harmonized methodology that reduces confusion over different methods resulting in different values. In the discussion, delegates highlighted the role of NGO-research partnerships in bridging the gap between those with “know how” (local level) and “know why” (scientists), and the need to bring in the private sector through public-private partnerships.
In the afternoon, parallel sessions convened, with participants addressing the following topics: practical tools for monitoring and assessment of DLDD for economic assessments; economic and social impacts assessment of DLDD at a regional/national scale; community based approaches to SLM; Carbon – a valuable global benefit of SLM; opportunities for linking carbon storage, ecosystem services and livelihoods; arid lands restoration and combat of desertification: setting up a drylands and desert restoration hub; the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative – Bridging the science-policy-practice divide; assessing actions to combat desertification through valuations; and water and SLM.
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Daily web highlights
(click on the following links to see our daily web pages)
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UNCCD resources
Second Scientific Conference website
Second Scientific Conference programme
Second Scientific Conference documents
CST S-3 website
CST S-3 documents
CST S-3 provisional agenda
CRIC 11 website
CRIC 11 documents
CRIC 11 provisional agenda
IISD RS resources
IISD RS coverage of the Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the UNCCD, 10-21 October 2011, Changwon City, Republic of Korea
IISD RS summary of the Second Special Session of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST S-2) of the UNCCD and CRIC 9, 16-18 and 21-25 February 2011, Bonn, Germany (English: HTML - PDF) (French: HTML - PDF)
IISD RS coverage of the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 9), 21 September - 2 October 2009, Buenos Aires, Argentina
IISD RS coverage of UNCCD CST S-1 and CRIC 7, 3-14 November 2008, Istanbul, Turkey
Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) coverage of desertification negotiations
LAND-L - A news and announcement list on land policy issues
Land Policy & Practice - A Knowledgebase of International Activities Addressing Sustainable Land
Linkages Update - Bi-weekly international environment and sustainable development news |
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