Project Predator

INTERPOL's Environmental Crime Programme along with the World Bank and partners launched Project Predator during the 80th General Assembly. The project seeks to work with the 13 tiger-range countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Nepal, Thailand, Viet Nam and the Russian Federation to organize collaborative, high-level international efforts to improve political will, transform this will into departmental support, and train officers in the necessary skills. The Project also calls for countries to establish National Tiger Crime Task Forces, which it hopes will encourage the use of modern, intelligence-led enforcement practices for tiger conservation.

While not limited to the protection of tigers, it will also undertake initiatives and advocacy for all Asian “big cats,” including leopards, snow leopards, clouded leopards and Asiatic lions, which are are traded in the same manner as tiger parts.

  

Mountain Partnership Holds Regional Meetings

Experts from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Mongolia and Tajikistan recently convened at a meeting on "Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Development in Mountain Regions" exploring how best to address evidence of climate change impacts on mountain regions in international discussions. Participants highlighted impacts on agriculture, stressing that the climate change negotiations do not adequately consider mountain ecosystems and populations and identified priority challenges and strategic actions related to:
- branding and better communicating the global importance of Central Asian mountains;
- advocating for mountain states to act as one;
- consideration of a variety of renewable energy sources including the advantages and disadvantages of hydropower;
- sustainable use and management of water resources;
- collection of monitoring data and strengthening networks;
- efforts to combat forest degradation;
- identifying appropriate financial mechanisms for climate adaptation;
- improvement of grazing areas; and
- risk prevention of natural disasters.

The meeting is part of a series of three regional meetings on adaptation and development in mountain regions hosted by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat. The meeting for the Latin American region was held in Chile in October 2011, and the meeting for the African region will be held in Mbale (Uganda) from 16-18 November 2011.

Mountain Partnership Meeting Website

Mountains and Green Economy

The “International Conference on Green Economy and Sustainable Mountain Development: Opportunities and Challenges in View of Rio+20,” recently brought together international, regional and national experts and policy-makers in Kathmandu (Nepal) to discuss the relevance and scope of the green economy in the context of sustainable mountain development. An outcome of the two-day workshop and one-day Conference was the “Kathmandu Declaration on Green Economy and Mountain Development," which includes recommendations to feed into the UNCSD (Rio+20) process regarding:
- the recognition of benefits derived from mountains;
- the establishment of global, regional, national and local mechanisms to compensate and reward mountain communities for the services mountains provide;
- the establishment of favorable conditions for improving markets for mountain ecosystem goods and services;
- a green economy in mountains based on equity; and
- access to resources and property rights for mountain women, indigenous communities and marginalized groups.

Further information

ICIMOD: CBD Implementation

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has released a new publication titled: Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity: A retrospective analysis in the Hindu Kush-Himalyan countries. Using the national reports to CBD as the primary source, the paper examines progress made by the eight countries of the region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan.

Award for Best Forest Policies

In support of the 2011 Year of Forests, the World Future Council's Future Policy Award will be given to the three most inspiring, innovative and influential forest policies worldwide. Bhutan, Gambia, Nepal, Rwanda, Switzerland and the USA have been shortlisted from a list of 20 policies from 16 states and the winners will be announced on 21 September at UN/HQ.

A Factsheet on the shortlisted policies is available here