January 2014
Dear Regional CEM Members,
The new year began for the Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) with exciting possibilities for this region to connect with people and ideas through the new IUCN Portal. All
CEM members should have received—and new members will soon receive-a username and password. I encourage you all to make use of this extraordinary networking resource. Sign in at https://portals.iucn.org/union/ If you need a new password, l ogin with your first name.last name (e.g patricia.hawes) and request a new password. The portal works best on Google
Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
After you sign in, click on the ‘Commissions’ tab on the top horizontal menu bar (see above). A list of all IUCN Commissions will come up. Scroll down to the fourth line— Commission on
Ecosystem Management 2013-2016 . Click on the ‘File’ icon on the left, and a page with all current documents from IUCN and global CEM will appear. Exit ‘File’ and return to the main list.
Scroll down until you reach ‘CEM North America and English-Speaking Caribbean’. When you click the ‘File’ icon on this line, you will find a copy of this January 2014 newsletter. Click on the
‘People’ icon on the left and a list with your name should appear, along with all your regional colleagues, their contact information and their participation in CEM thematic groups. If changes are needed in your contact information, please notify Pat Hawes at Patricia.HAWES@iucn.org
There are tools galore in this portal, such as calendars, discussion groups, even email.
Volunteers are needed to explore the possibilities for our region.
I would like to feature one tool that our region can use in every issue of our regional newsletter, written by a CEM member. To fully explore the possibilities, you can download the User Guidebook at: https://portals.iucn.org/union/sites/union/files/doc/union_portal_guide_en.pdf
Please let me know if you can help with this . If we take full advantage of the portal, we can share resources, case studies, Requests for Proposals, and other exchanges in a much more meaningful and consistent fashion. Thank you for your help.

Pat Comer, regional CEM member from NatureServe, reports that work is steadily progressing on developing the data sets needed to begin the red listing process for ecosystems in the
Americas. NatureServe is the IUCN contractor for the America’s Red List of Ecosystems (RLE), a project supported by a $1.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The final touches are now being put on a new 90m map of potential distribution for vegetation types of the South American continent. The next maps of this type, scheduled for completion in early
2014, are for temperate and tropical North America and the Caribbean. To follow the progress of this project, visit www.iucnredlistofecosystems.org.
NatureServe is looking for additional peer review input on the North America and Caribbean assessments throughout the first half of 2014. If you are interested in participating as a volunteer in this exciting project, contact Pat at Pat_Comer@natureserve.org. He will also be sharing preliminary findings from the RLE project and exploring technical issues at
NatureServe’s 2014 Biodiversity Without Borders meeting in New Orleans from April 6-14.
The North America & Caribbean region of CEM is happy to welcome several new members who have been approved for membership in 2014. Welcome to Mohamed I. Bakarr, Owen Hablutzel and Darwin Horning. IUCN’s regional CEM seeks members who currently live in Canada, the
United States, or the English-speaking Caribbean islands. CEM priorities are Disaster Risk
Reduction, Ecosystem-based Adaptation (in relation to climate change), Red List of Ecosystems,
Resilience in Ecosystems, and Managing Ecosystems (Ecosystem Services). If you have colleagues who can contribute to CEM priorities or Thematic Groups, please nominate them for membership.
Nominations for CEM membership are made at the regional level. CEM members can submit nominations to Charlotte Moser, Regional Chair, at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
. Please attach a candidate’s CV and a completed CEM Membership Application Form available at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_join/ Regional membership coordinator
Brock Blevins will follow up and update CEM membership records at the IUCN Secretariat in
Gland, Switzerland.
We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the
Commission and IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region

March 2014
Dear Regional CEM Members,
Commission members are invited to contribute comments to a new report
Nature Based Solutions for Human
Resilience: A Mapping Analysis of
IUCN’s Ecosystem Based Adaptation
Projects produced by IUCN’s Ecosystem
Management Programme to be released in March 2014. The report identifies 64 projects conducted by the Union world-wide that directly or indirectly contribute towards climate adaptation. Projects have been mapped to support IUCN’s efforts to integrate climate sensitive planning to conserve biodiversity and sustain ecosystem services.
To see a copy of the report, sign in to the IUCN portal https://portals.iucn.org/union/ and go to the
CEM-North America & Caribbean portal where the report is posted in the documents section. Since no projects were reported in our region, I encourage you to send me information about projects in Canada, the U.S. or the Caribbean if you are aware of any.
Three CEM members from North America have accepted appointments to serve on a four-month task force to draft the terms for CEM’s new permanent Arctic Ecosystems Thematic Group: Alexander Shestakov , who heads WWF Global Arctic Programme based in Ottawa, Ontario;
Jean Thie , Executive Director, EcoInformatics International, Ottawa; and
Phil Mundy, Director of Auke Bay Laboratories (NOAA) at the Alaska
Fisheries Science Center, Juneau, Alaska. They are joined by Joan
Larsen , Stefansson Arctic Institute, Iceland; and Ilan Kelman, CEM’s
Arctic Focal Point, based in the UK. Advising CEM in the formation of the new Thematic Group is Martha McConnell , Ph.D., Manager, IUCN
Polar Programmes who represents IUCN at Arctic Council meetings. The permanent Thematic Group is expected to launch in Fall 2014.
IUCN is collaborating with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Agence Francaise du
Developpement, and the Veolia Environment Institute on the “Ecosystems, Economy and Society
Conference” in Washington DC on May 29-30. The meeting aims to provide a platform for dialogue among scientists, policy-makers, private sector, NGOs and donors to inform the implementation of the
CBD Biodiversity targets. For information, go to www.ecosystems-economy-society.org

The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) in the
Caribbean is assisting CEM’s North America & Caribbean region to recruit new members in island nations where English,
French or Dutch are the national languages. Working
together, WCPA and CEM are collaborating to support the
International Year of Small Island Developing States in 2014. In the months ahead, we hope to double CEM membership in the Caribbean where numerous Global Environment Fund projects are under way. If you have Caribbean colleagues, please encourage them to submit applications to CEM.
Six leads of CEM Thematic Groups are based in North America.
Emmanuelle
Cohen-Shacham leads CEM’s Ecosystem Services Thematic Group, the
Commission’s largest thematic group. Based outside New York City, Emmanuelle was recently invited by the head of Mexico’s IUCN National Committee to participate in a three-day program on Ecosystem Services and Wetlands in Mexico.
Marine Kuperminc , an intern working out of the IUCN-Washington DC office, is assisting Emmanuelle for five months on a thematic group project .
Jacob Park is the new lead of CEM’s Ecosystems & Private Sector Thematic Group.
Associate Professor of Business Strategy and Sustainability at Green Mountain College in Vermont, Jacob specializes in research on innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability with a focus on climate change/resilience, renewable energy and food systems. He wants to hear your thoughts about collaborations between ecosystems services and ecological restoration, among others, and private companies. Please contact him at p arkj@greenmtn.edu
Other North American leads manage Thematic Groups on Climate Change Adaptation,
Ecological Restoration, and Mediterranean Ecosystems. For further information, see ‘Contacts’ on IUCN’s
CEM webpage http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/
Nominations for CEM membership are made at the regional level. CEM members can submit nominations for people working in North America & the Caribbean to Charlotte Moser, Regional Chair, at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
. Please attach a candidate’s CV and a completed CEM Membership
Application Form available at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_join/ Regional membership coordinator Brock Blevins will follow up and update CEM membership records at the IUCN
Secretariat in Gland, Switzerland.
We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the Commission and
IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region

Vol. 2, No. 3
Dear Regional CEM members,
The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (IPBES) is seeking nominations of experts to implement its first work programme (2014-2018). Experts are needed for scoping
May 2014
assessments and the effect of land degradation on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well being. In this region, experts are eligible from the following countries: North America: Canada, United States; Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis.
Deadline is June 8, 2014, to receive nominations ideally from a government office. Background on current IPBES representatives in regional governments is available at http://www.ipbes.net/aboutipbes/current-mep-members.html
. For information about submitting an application online, please go to http://www.ipbes.net/applicationform.html
.
IPBES was established in April 2012, as an independent intergovernmental body aimed at assessing the state of the planet's biodiversity, its ecosystems and the essential services they provide to society.
Its new work programme closely aligns to the IUCN Programme, building on the Resolutions on IPBES itself (WCC-2012-Res-117) and on IUCN’s role in the Platform (WCC-2012-Res-118) adopted at the
2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress.
Piet Wit, Chair of CEM from the Netherlands, is presenting a paper on restoration for landscape resilience at the conference “Ecosystems, Economy and Society: How Large-Scale Restoration Can Stimulate Sustainable
Development” in Washington DC on May 30. To introduce Piet to regional
CEM members, the North America & Caribbean region is coordinating a reception on May 28. Partners for the reception are IUCN’s Global Forest and
Climate Change Programme; the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER); and
World Resources Institute (WRI) where the reception will be held. Please let me know at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
if you can join us at the reception.

The 2nd International Forum of the Qur’anic Botanic Garden was held in Doha, Qatar, on April 22-24. Organized by Qur’anic Botanic
Garden and IUCN’s Commission on Ecosystem Management, the conference theme was “Islamic Perspectives on Ecosystem
Management.” Dr. Stephen R. Edwards, regional member who serves on the CEM steering committee, facilitated several sessions at the conference. For information, go to http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_about/islam ic_perspectives_on_ecosystem_management/
th
Abstracts for presentations will be accepted until July 1 for the “8th International
Congress For Wildlife and Livelihoods on Private and Communal Lands:
Livestock, Tourism, and Spirit” in Estes Park, Colorado, from Sept. 7-12. The conference, coordinated by Colorado State University, will address how wildlife and
recreation contributes to agricultural management, conservation, economies and healthy societies. For information, go to http://tiny.cc/2014WildlifeCongress

Congratulations to Jean Wiener, CEM member from Haiti, who on May 8 was awarded a Whitley Gold
Award for his work to establish the country’s first Marine Protected Area. Jean is founder and director of the Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine (FoProBiM), Haiti’s only NGO engaged in coastal and marine environmental management and protection. Anne, Princess Royal of the United
Kingdom, made the award at a special ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Nominations for CEM membership are made at the regional level. CEM members can submit nominations for people working in North America & the Caribbean to Charlotte Moser, Regional Chair, at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
. Please attach a candidate’s CV and a completed CEM Membership Application
Form available at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_join/ Regional membership coordinator
Brock Blevins will follow up and update CEM membership records at the IUCN Secretariat in Gland, Switzerland.
We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the Commission and IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region

Vol. 2, No. 4
Dear  CEM  Regional  Members,
July 2014
IUCN has selected Hawaii as the venue for the 2016
IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC), the world’s largest conservation event held every four years. This will be the first time the WCC has been hosted by the USA, coinciding with the 100 th
Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu anniversary of the US National Park Service. The
US has 85 IUCN member organizations and 2,200
IUCN Commission members. With 112 members, CEM membership in the US is the largest globally,
followed by India with 85 members.
CEM’s North America & Caribbean Region hosted a reception for CEM chair Piet Wit during the International Conference on Ecosystems,
Economy and Society: How Large-Scale
Restoration Can Stimulate Sustainable
Development in Washington DC in late May. Piet was in Washington to present at the conference held at the US National Academy of Sciences and hosted by Veolia Institute, Agence Française de Développement, and IUCN. A paper by
Edmund Barrow, Director of IUCN’s Global
Ecosystem Management Programme, appears in the June issue of Sapiens, Veolia Institute’s journal, along with selected conference papers.
CEM reception, Washington DC. From left:
Emmanuel Cohen-Shachem, Ecosystems
Services; Steve Edwards, Steering Committee;
Charlotte Moser, NAC Regional Chair; Piet Wit,
CEM Chair; Brock Blevins, NAC Membership
Coordinator; Keith Bowers, Ecological
Restoration.
Partners for the CEM reception were the IUCN
Global Forest and Climate Change Programme, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER),
IUCN-Washington DC, and World Resources
Institute. WRI and IUCN are partners on the
Global Partnership on Forest Landscape
Restoration. (See photos, page 3)

The US Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda and Bonaire, all regional CEM countries, have among the healthiest coral reefs in the Caribbean, thanks to restricted or banned fishing practices that harm parrotfish. A new IUCN publication Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs:
1970-2012 reports that the loss of parrotfish and sea urchin – the area’s two main grazers – has been the key driver of coral decline in the region, not climate change as previously thought. Caribbean reefs, spanning a total of 38 countries, are vital to the region’s economy. They generate more than US$ 3 billion annually from tourism and fisheries and over a hundred times more in other goods and services, on which more than
43 million people depend.
Barbuda will soon ban all catches of parrotfish and grazing sea urchins, and set aside one-third of its coastal waters as marine reserves as part of an aggressive marine management program. Reefs where parrotfish are not protected have suffered devastating declines, including Jamaica, the entire
Florida Reef Tract from Miami to Key West, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Individuals from IUCN member organizations and commissions are encouraged to seek nominations from their governments for the
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES) Multidisciplinary Expert Panel. The deadline for nominations is
15 August. For information, click here.
IPBES has also issued a call for comments on the full IPBES work program available online . Please send comments by 15 September to
Ms. Laurence Perianin who joined the IUCN Secretariat on July 1 as the new Liaison Officer for IPBES on secondment from the Ministry of
Ecology of the Government of France.
Liette Vasseur, lead of CEM’s
Thematic Group on Climate
Change Adaptation, has been selected by the Canadian
Commission for UNESCO as its first Chair in Community
Sustainability. A biologist, Liette is a faculty member at the
Environmental Sustainability
Research Centre (ESRC) of
Brock University, St. Catharines,
Ontario.
Jean Thie, Ottawa, head of CEM’s Arctic Ecosystems Task Force, has been invited to discuss CEM’s new Arctic Ecosystems Thematic Group at the Arctic Biodiversity Congress in Trondeim, Norway, in
December. The launch of CEM’s newest Thematic Group is expected in Fall 2014.

Partners for the CEM reception included the IUCN Global Forest and Climate Change Program and the
Society for Ecological Restoration (SER). Photo left: Carole Saint-Laurent (left), Deputy Director,
IUCN’s Forest Programme, based in Toronto; Martha McConnell (right), Manager, IUCN Polar
Programme, based in Washington, DC. Photo right: Cara Nelson from Montana, Board Chair of SER, talks with CEM chair Piet Wit.
Nominations for CEM membership are made at the regional level. CEM members can submit nominations for people working in North America & the Caribbean to Charlotte Moser, Regional Chair, at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
. Please attach a candidate’s CV and a completed CEM Membership
Application Form available at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_join/ Regional membership coordinator Brock Blevins will follow up and update CEM membership records at the IUCN
Secretariat in Gland, Switzerland.
We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the Commission and
IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region

Vol. 2, No. 5
Dear Regional CEM Members,
September 2014
Regional Presence at IUCN World Parks Congress:
Sydney Olympic Park, November 12-19
CEM’s North America-Caribbean region will be well represented at IUCN’s World Parks Congress in Sydney
Olympic Park, Australia, from November 12-19. Our
Commission and IUCN’s Ecosystem Management Program are coordinating the Nature-Based Solutions Pavilion , one of six Congress pavilions where small sessions, poster talks and e-poster presentations will take place. Among them will be “Exploring Tools for Climate Change Resilience In and Around Protected Areas” to include regional members Darwin Horning, University of British Columbia, and Liette Vasseur, Brock University, Ontario, and coordinated by Steve Edwards, U.S.-based CEM vice chair.
The U.S. National Parks Service is a lead coordinator for the Congress climate change stream. Parks Canada and Parks Caribbean are both coordinating sessions. If you are attending the World Parks Congress, please let us know at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
.
October 5 Due Date for 2 nd IUCN Red List of Ecosystems
Photo Contest
Photographs will be received for the 2 nd
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems
Photo Contest until Sunday October 5 in two categories: Wild
Nature, where ecosystems are displayed without visible human intervention; and The Changing World , in the case of ecosystems that show a human impact, either positive or negative. Photos that receive the highest number of “Likes” via the RLE Facebook page will be evaluated by a jury, which will select the winning photos for each category. The earlier you send your photo(s), the more “Likes” it may have! Click here for information.
New CEM Thematic Groups Now Recruiting Members
Based in the North America-Caribbean region, the leads of two new
CEM Thematic Groups are now recruiting members. Khara Grieger, lead for CEM’s new Nanotechnology Thematic Group approved by the Steering Committee in April, is a specialist in nanomaterial tools for emerging environmental risks at RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Khara holds a
PhD in Environmental Engineering from Technical University of Denmark and an M.S. in Plant Biology from
Michigan State University. The new thematic group will focus on risk assessment and decision support for nanomaterials, science-policy interactions, and multi-stakeholder collaborations.
Jean Thie, lead for the Arctic Ecosystems Thematic Group to be presented for approval at the October CEM
Steering Committee meeting, is president of Ecoinformatics International Inc., Ottawa. Formerly

director of the Land Resources and Data Systems Branch of Environment Canada, he launched the Canadian
Geographic Information System (CGIS) and Canada’s National Atlas Information Service. Jean was Chief
Information Officer for four years at IUCN headquarters in Switzerland.
The Arctic Ecosystem Thematic Group will focus on cross-sectoral aspects of ecosystem management in the Arctic. If you are interested in joining these Thematic Groups, contact Pat Hawes, CEM
Membership Coordinator.
Call for Abstracts: Nexus 2015: Water, Food, Climate &
Energy Conference, March 15-17, 2015
Nexus 2015: Water, Food, Climate & Energy Conference has issued a call for abstracts for the third Nexus Conference, scheduled for March
15-17, 2015, at the Water Institute, University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill. B uilding on the German government’s Bonn2011 Nexus Conference , the global meetings bring together
researchers and practitioners working in government, civil society and business, focusing on the nexus approach.
Session topics include: sustainable and resilient development at a local level; transboundary, national and local nexus governance; corporate stewardship of the nexus; financing in a nexus world; sustainable agriculture; water stress, vulnerability, and health; and managing resources: optimizing co-demands. Due date for abstracts is
October 31, 2014.
For information, go to http://nexus.unc.edu/
PEER Science proposals due October 1 from environmental scientists in Caribbean
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has set an
October 1 deadline for proposals for its Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER)
Science program. In partnership with USAID and the
National Science Foundation, the program supports scientists in developing countries with research and capacity-building activities on climate change, food security, and other topics including disaster mitigation, biodiversity, water and renewable energy.
Regional CEM countries eligible for PEER grants are
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica,
Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines. For information, visit http://sites.nationalacademies.org/
PGA/dsc/peerscience/index.htm
7 th Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP)
Conference, Costa Rica, September 2014
Emmanuel Cohen-Shachem, U.S.-based co-lead of the CEM Ecosystem Services Thematic Group, participated in the 7 th
Ecosystem Services Partnership
Conference in Costa Rica from September 8-12. The conference brought together a growing global network of ESP members, practitioners, educators, policymakers, and researchers. For information, visit http://www.espconference.org/ESP_Conference
Regional Online Survey Coming Soon!
Look for the 2014-2015 North America-Caribbean
Region Members online survey coming in October.
Your input is important! Nominations for CEM membership are welcome, made at the regional level.
CEM members can submit nominations for people working in North America & the Caribbean to Charlotte Moser, Regional Chair, at cm.iucn.cem.nac@gmail.com
.
Please attach a candidate’s CV and a completed CEM Membership Application Form available at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_join/ Regional membership coordinator Brock Blevins will follow up and update CEM membership records at the IUCN Secretariat in Gland, Switzerland.
We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the Commission and IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region

Vol. 2, No. 6
Dear Members of Commission on Ecosystem Management,
November-December 2014
The 2014 World Parks Congress concluded in Sydney, Australia, on November 19 after a week of workshops, dialogues and events focused on the role of protected areas in environmental stewardship.
For the first time, c limate change was a major topic at the Parks Congress, both in terms of how protected areas help moderate greenhouse gases as well as the challenges of climate-related impacts in managing protected areas.
In addition to the Commission’s support for IUCN’s Nature-
Based Solutions Pavilion, regional CEM members participated in multiple events at the Congress. Barbara
Heinzen (USA) ran two cross-stream New Social Compact climate dialogue events that linked climate change, governance, indigenous people and youth as well as events on business and scenario planning. Hannah Gosnell (USA) was a panelist for Adaptive governance for resilient protected areas – preparing for the challenges ahead . Liette
Vasseur (Canada), lead for CEM’s adaptation thematic

group, participated in three panels: Guidelines for sustainability and ecosystem-based climate change adaptation in the coastal zone; Climate change adaptation and mitigation actions to enhance food security and livelihoods ; and, along with Steve Edwards (USA) and Darwin Horning (Canada)
Resilience tools for climate change adaptation in and around protected areas. Alexander Shestakov
(Canada), a member of CEM’s Arctic Ecosystems Task Force, participated in the panel A Polar
Journey: The effectiveness of protected areas in the high north and the deep south.
Three case studies from the region are included in Safe
Havens: Protected Areas for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, a new IUCN study copublished by CEM that was released at the World Parks
Congress.
A Barbados case study carried out for the IUCN report by re-insurance company SwissRe suggests that every dollar invested in the mangrove forests of the Folkestone
Marine Park can reduce $20 in hurricane losses. A U.S. case study examines the post-Katrina benefits of restoring the coastal barrier islands of the Gulf Islands
National Seashore and the Jean Lafitte National Historic
Park and Preserve, finding that no levees with adjacent
swamps failed during the 2005 hurricane. Scientists estimate that the loss of the Gulf barrier islands could raise storm surge wave height by up to as much as
1.25m. In northern Canada, the salt marshes of the Kouchibouguac National Park on the Atlantic coast contain many traditional medicinal plants, such as sweetgrass ( Hierochloe odorata ), for the nearby First
Nations, especially the Mi’kmaq communities of the New Brunswick eastern coast. Proposed DRR measures for the Canada study include linking weather forecasting (for storms) with harvest and monitoring periods in order to avoid risks to people, as well as relocation of some populations.
To download the publication with all 18 case studies, go to https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/44887 .
Jean Thie (Canada), lead of CEM’s new Arctic Ecosystems
Management Thematic Group, is representing CEM at the Arctic
Biodiversity Congress to take place in Trondheim, Norway, on
December 2-4. The global meeting is organized by Conservation of
Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the biodiversity working group of the
Arctic Council. CAFF conducted the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment in 2013, which contains the best
available science informed by traditional ecological knowledge on the status and trends of Arctic biodiversity and accompanying policy recommendations for biodiversity conservation. The U.S. has announced that, when it takes over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2015 following Canada’s two-year chairmanship, the Council will focus on climate change impact in the Arctic. To view the
Congress program, go to http://www.arcticbiodiversity.is/congress

CEM will be present at the 2014 UN climate negotiations to take place in Lima, Peru from December 1-12. Angela
Andrade, CEM Deputy Chair and Colombia Environment
Policy Director for Conservation International, will participate in a panel Ecosystem-based Adaptation Effectiveness:
Evidence from the Field on December 3. IUCN’s Ecosystem
Management Program is coordinating a side event with the
IUCN Forest Programme on   Climate Mitigation and
Adaptation in Forest Landscape Restoration: Exploring the
Synergies on December 4.The UNFCCC meeting this year sets the stage for COP-21 in Paris in 2015, where the goal is   to achieve, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, a binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world.
For the COP-20 schedule, go to http://unfccc.int/meetings/lima_dec_2014/meeting/8141.php.
CEM and IUCN’s Ecosystem Management Program (EMP) released a summary briefing note about the progress of the Red List of Ecosystems in September 2014. As a first step in achieving global assessments, the Red List of the Continental Ecosystems of the Americas will be completed by 2015.
The study will provide a series of baselines, assessments of land cover change against these baselines, analyses of the drivers of change, and application of the RLE criteria to ecosystems at both continental and national scales. Partnership building is under way to implement this model in Africa with regional assessments under way in Europe, and expansion to Asia, Oceania, and the marine, freshwater and subterranean realms under consideration. The briefing note is available at http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/briefing_note_on_rle_09_10_14_1.pdf
Best wishes to all for a Happy Holiday and a productive year ahead. We thank you for your continued support and interest in furthering the priorities of the Commission and IUCN.
Best wishes,
Charlotte Moser
Regional Chair
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
North America & Caribbean Region