A high-level global expert webinar discusses avenues to preserve biodiversity.

The Hassan II International Center for Environmental Training jointly hosted a webinar with the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL), a leading global non-governmental organization for biodiversity, on February 8, 2023.

The half-day webinar, available in four languages, is part of a series entitled “The Transformative Power of Law: Addressing Global Environmental Challenges.”

This edition offered an update on the outcomes of the landmark COP 15 on biodiversity held in Montreal in December 2022.
IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) Chair, Professor Christina Voigt, Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection Secretary General, Ms. Nouzha Alaoui, and IUCN’s International Policy Centre Director, Ms. Sonia Peña Moreno, launched seminar proceedings.

As Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity since June 2020 and newly appointed Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in December 2022, Ms. Elizabeth Mrema of the United Republic of Tanzania was an ideal interlocutor to provide an initial assessment of COP15 results. She reviewed the crucial conference’s protracted genesis, postponed for two years because of Covid-19, eventually leading to resolutions vastly different from those that would have been reached in 2020. The two-year delay meant more time for work and enabled broader inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders in the negotiations.

The session then examined COP 15 outcomes from a legal perspective, with expert testimony from Yong Pung School of Law at Singapore Management University Professor Michelle Lim.

And the second focusing on how universities should approach species and ecosystem regeneration, with a presentation from Oxford University Biology Department’s Nature Positive Universities Coordinator, Emily Stott.