12 December 2022, Montreal – side event “Exploration and Practice of Multi-stakeholder Participation in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use” was successfully held at China Pavilion during the CBD COP15 II part. It was co-hosted by Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (NIES), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme – International Ecosystem Management Partnership (UNEP-IEMP), Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and Eco-Environment & Health (EEH). Mr. ZHAO Yingmin, Vice Minister of Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, Mr. David Cooper, Deputy Executive Secretary of CBD, and Mr. REN Hongqiang, Editor-in-Chief of EEH Journal attended the opening ceremony and delivered remarks.

UNEP-IEMP Director Dr. Linxiu Zhang delivered a keynote speech entitled “Enhance multi-stakeholder cooperation and nexus approach for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use”. In her speech, Linxiu pointed out that “climate, ecosystems and human society” should be considered as a coupled system, and all parties should actively use a nexus approach to realize multiple benefits, use their interactions to promote synergistic development, i.e., promote ecological restoration and better ecosystem service provisioning while adapting to climate change.

Dr. Zhang said the implementation of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework should strengthen multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral research, and to combine multi-stakeholder efforts and active collaboration with governments and non-governmental organizations. She also emphasized that empowering women and promoting gender equality are critical to achieving SDGs and central to goals such as eradicating poverty and hunger, improving education and health, combating climate change, addressing environmental issues and others. 

Group photo of guests