Biodiversity and Pandemics Workshop Participants Announced

15 July 2020 

Considering the extraordinary situation caused by the novel Coronavirus and given the role that IPBES can play in strengthening the knowledge base on biodiversity links of current and future pandemics such as COVID-19 and in reaching a wide public, the IPBES Bureau and Multidisciplinary Expert Panel decided that IPBES will organize a virtual Platform workshop on the link between biodiversity and pandemics, held from 27-31 July 2020.

Pursuant to IPBES secretariat notification EM/2020/09, the Multidisciplinary Expert Panel has selected participants from the pool of experts involved in ongoing IPBES work linked to the topic, as well as experts nominated by Governments and stakeholders. The final list of participants is available here. 

Additional information on the Biodiversity and Pandemics Platform Workshop can be found here.

The outcome of the workshop will be a workshop report that will mainly support the scoping of the nexus assessment (scoping for the nexus assessment was approved by the IPBES Plenary in decision IPBES-7/1 and the scoping report will be considered by the Plenary at IPBES 8). The report will, in particular, inform the scoping of the interlinkages between biodiversity and health with regard to pandemics and explore and outline relevant aspects, which could be addressed in the nexus assessment. Other ongoing scoping processes and assessments may be informed by the workshop report where relevant and appropriate.

The report will be subject to a round of peer-review in August 2020 and be made available publicly in September 2020. It will include a prominent disclaimer that the report has not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by the Plenary.

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