External Review of IPBES Regional Assessments and Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment by Governments and Experts

Experts are invited to participate in the external review of the four IPBES regional assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services (for Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe and Central Asia) and the thematic assessment on land degradation and restoration. IPBES aims to finalize these five assessments at the sixth session of the IPBES Plenary, in March 2018.

One of the most important phases in drafting assessments is the period in which they are opened for external review by any interested experts, ranging from scientists and decision-makers, to practitioners and the holders of indigenous and local knowledge. The wider the range of expert participation in the external review, the more credible, legitimate and policy-relevant the assessments will be.

The eight-week period for external review of the second order drafts of the assessment chapters and the first order drafts of the summaries for policymakers is now open and runs until 26 June 2017 for the land degradation and restoration, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe and Central Asia assessments; and until 24 July 2017 for the Americas assessment.

Experts wishing to participate can still do so but will first need to register as users of the IPBES website (http://www.ipbes.net/user/register?destination=sod-review) if they have not already done so. They can then apply to become an IPBES external reviewer for individual chapters per assessment at http://www.ipbes.net/user/login?destination=sod-review (this will only work when logged in first as IPBES website users). They will receive confidential access to the draft chapters and summaries for policymakers and will be requested to submit their comments in English using a template that will also be supplied. All relevant comments will then be addressed by the assessment authors in the next round of revisions.

We have recorded a 20-minute webinar focusing on how Governments especially can participate in this external review. The webinar can be accessed at: https://youtu.be/tnx8nxDId08 

There are also a series of short videos answering basic questions about the review and the assessments in a dedicated playlist on the IPBES YouTube Channel