Ecosystem Restoration Workshop

10-11 Sep | The Marion, Canberra

Ngunnawal Country

Thanks to the 125 restoration experts, practitioners, First Nations People and policy makers who joined us for 2 days on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra to:

• Identify priority degraded areas in Australia.

• Share and review current knowledge and frameworks for ecosystem restoration, identifying barriers, gaps and needs.

• Make recommendations for defining effective restoration in an Australian context.

• Contribute to a proposed system of values, principles, tools and approaches to prioritize ecosystems for effective restoration, including the need to partner with First Nations people.

• Identify financial mechanisms to build capacity, support and scale-up restoration.

• Build a roadmap of recommended actions for Australia to achieve our national restoration target.

What’s next?

The ACIUCN team will be compiling a report, synthesizing the participant feedback and recommendations made at the workshop.

Report: Priority actions to meet Australia's commitments to the Global Biodiversity Framework

The final report from our Global Biodiversity Framework workshop is now available to download.

About this report:

To help guide the delivery of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Australia, in May 2023 the Australian Committee for IUCN (ACIUCN) brought together over 100 participants for the workshop ‘Global Biodiversity Framework – Help Australia meet targets by 2030’.

Over two days, representatives from 54 organisations, leaders in conservation across science, government, non-government, Indigenous, and the private sector gathered to listen, learn, discuss, and ultimately recommend clear national actions to meet the K-M GBF targets in Australia.

The purpose of the workshop was to bring together experts from across sectors to discuss, inform and contribute to:

• Development of strategies and actions (within Australia) to meet Global Biodiversity Framework targets by 2030

• Revision of Australia’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) due for submission at COP16 in late 2024.

The workshop and this report build on previous ACIUCN workshops and subsequent reports including:

• Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework Workshop: Australia Workshop Report & Analysis (Rowland et al., 2022)

• Starting the conversation on Australia’s priorities for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: A synthesis of views (Spencer-Smith et al., 2019).

This report was developed in collaboration with workshop participants and members of the organising committee. This report does not attempt to be a comprehensive suite of actions necessary to meet the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, but rather emphasises the priority actions drawn from the recommendations of workshop participants. It is not intended to cover the full range of perspectives raised at the workshop but to collate and synthesise the key findings to help guide revision of Australia’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, and its subsequent implementation.

Video: Synthetic Biology webinar

The video recording of our Synthetic Biology webinar is now available.

Synthetic biology creates both significant risks and significant opportunities for nature conservation.

This webinar discussed the IUCN process for developing a policy on synthetic biology in relation to nature conservation. An interesting part of that work was the groundbreaking creation of a Citizens’ Assembly to ensure that the formal policy development process receives input from a genuinely representative cross-section of the IUCN Membership. IUCN members Parks Victoria and the University of Queensland were randomly selected from the membership base to contribute.

Panellists included:

• Jessica Reid – District Manager from Parks Victoria and Citizens Assembly participant.

• Dr Stuart Kininmonth - Heron Island Research Station Manager, University of Queensland and Citizens Assembly Participant

• Peter Cochrane - IUCN Vice President and part of the Council Programme and Policy Committee Resolution 123 Working Group

• Jo Hopkins - ACIUCN Commissions Liaison and Co-Chair IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Health and Wellbeing Specialist Group.

For further information on synthetic biology see:

• IUCN issues brief: Synthetic biology and its implications for biodiversity conservation

• IUCN Resolution: Towards the development of a policy on Synthetic Biology in relation to Nature Conservation