Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net)

Do you know that restoring a forest can start with a bike trail? Boo Mountain Bike Park in Vanadzor, Armenia, grew from a small grant into a self-sustaining conservation centre with more than 45,000 visitors. Now it’s on show at #COP17. Read the full story: undp-nature.exposure.co/the-trailbla...

Women’s leadership is essential to effective biodiversity action. On #COP17Armenia’s Women’s Forum, the launch of the first Women’s Biodiversity Outlook puts women’s contributions, leadership and priorities in focus as countries assess progress toward the #KMGBF. Watch live: https://webtv.un.org/

🔔 At #COP17Armenia in Yerevan? Join this Blue Zone panel on how biodiversity can drive sustainable economic connectivity between Europe, the Caucasus and Asia through green finance, nature-based enterprises and more. 📅 Wed 28 Oct, 16:00–16:45 (Yerevan time) 📍 Business and Biodiversity Hub

🌱 Nature sustains us, yet we often treat it as something separate from ourselves. Our latest article reflects on what this disconnect means for biodiversity and how changing the way we relate to nature and one another can contribute to wider change. Read: www.besnet.world/story/the-il...

💰 The world needs to mobilize at least US$200 billion a year for biodiversity by 2030. Where will that funding come from and how can financial flows be aligned with nature-positive outcomes? #COP17Armenia focuses on turning global targets into funded action. Live now: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1a...

🌿 #COP17Armenia enters its final, high-level week. What progress has been made, what remains unresolved, and which decisions are needed to accelerate action on biodiversity loss by 2030? UN and COP17 leaders brief the media on 26 October. 🕔 17:15 Yerevan time 🌐 Live on webtv.un.org/en

BES-Net is seeking 12 online volunteers from six Southeast Asian countries to research national biodiversity priorities, implementation barriers and promising initiatives ahead of its planned 2027 Regional Trialogue. Remote, flexible assignment. Apply by 30 October: www.besnet.world/jobs-and-opp...

🌀 Nearly a year after Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica’s Black River Lower Morass mangroves are showing signs of recovery. IUCN reports natural recovery could take 10 to 15 years, highlighting why active wetland rehabilitation matters for Caribbean resilience. Read the story: iucn.org/story/202607...

📘 New from @undp.org: eight case studies on how countries in the Global South exchange knowledge and adapt solutions for nature and people. Read the featured examples, including BES-Net’s Trialogues, which stimulated 80 restoration and policy actions in eight countries: www.undp.org/publications...

What enables implementation once countries have the knowledge, targets and strategies? On 23 October at #COP17Armenia, BES-Net, the RESPIN project and the ECA Network explore that question with lessons and pathways from the BESPIN Regional Trialogue. Join us in Yerevan! 🇦🇲

Markets reward what gets measured and financed. Right now, that often means clearing land pays better than protecting it. But governments and financial institutions write the rules businesses operate under, and those rules can change. See the evidence: https://www.ipbes.net/business-impact

Evidence can identify biodiversity priorities while remaining outside decisions. Finance can exist without reaching them. Policies can advance without the capacity to deliver. The UNDP Nature Pledge helps countries connect these parts. Find out how: undp.org/nature/natur...

When environmental crime expands, it reshapes who holds power on the ground. ⚖️ Women are often pushed further from decision-making, even as their roles in managing resources become more critical. Resilience depends on changing that balance. Learn more. ⤵️

The IPBES #BizBiodiversity Report is clear: EVERY business (no exceptions!) depends on biodiversity, and every business impacts biodiversity. Explore: https://www.ipbes.net/business-impact w/ 100 specific actions for businesses, governments, financial actors & civil society. #NoAI

Halfway to 2030, the head of the UN biodiversity convention says collective action on the global biodiversity targets isn't moving at the scale or pace needed. That makes implementation the lens for #COP17Armenia. If you're following from afar, start with these six issues to watch. 👇

Technical and scientific cooperation (TSC) support centres help countries fill gaps in data, technology and expertise. One in the Pacific works with 11 island countries. At #COP17Armenia, Parties consider funding the network's global coordination. Learn how the TSC mechanism works .👇

🆕 Just launched: The State of Biodiversity Action report! The first global report on #KMGBF implementation finds fewer than half of the national biodiversity targets assessed are on track. See what other findings will inform the first global review at #COP17Armenia. www.cbd.int/globalreview...

The field is the lab, and the records go back generations. #RuralWomen farmers track flowering times, late rains and which seeds survive a dry year. That knowledge helps communities adapt as the climate shifts, and it belongs alongside science in climate and biodiversity decisions. 🌾

#DidYouKnow that Target 23 of the #KMGBF recognizes women’s equal rights to land? But laws haven’t caught up: 59% of 84 countries reviewed by FAO offer women little to no legal land rights. It’s time to invest in #RuralWomen and remove barriers to their economic agency & environmental leadership.

🌾 #RuralWomen don’t just work the land. They read it, heal it and hand it on. Their knowledge of seeds, seasons and the land itself is part of how rural communities feed themselves and adapt when conditions change. We honour their work and their rights to shape a resilient future. 🌱

#COP17Armenia will review global progress in implementing the #KMGBF. Ahead of the event, young people are calling for more than recognition. They're calling for resources & opportunities to shape decisions and contribute to implementation. Read their perspective: www.besnet.world/story/from-k...

💰 #KMGBF Target 19 calls for $30 billion a year in new int'l biodiversity finance by 2030. But can we tell who actually receives it? @iied.bsky.social argues gender-responsive and community-generated data are critical to answering that question ahead of #COP17Armenia. www.iied.org/why-nature-f...

On 23 October at #COP17Armenia, BES-Net, RESPIN and the ECA Network bring lessons from the BESPIN Regional Trialogue to Yerevan. The focus: what it takes to move biodiversity and climate commitments into sustained implementation, drawing on the Trialogue’s regional action pathways. Save the date!

#COP17Armenia holds the first of two global reviews of the biodiversity framework before 2030 – and the one with the most time left to act on it. We know the world is still off track. The open question in Yerevan is how to speed up. Learn more in this explainer from the CBD. 👇

After its first national ecosystem assessment, the Dominican Republic still has critical information gaps in four protected areas. Baseline biodiversity and risk assessments in those sites are among the actions now planned with BES Solution Fund support. Read more: www.besnet.world/story/the-do...

Abdim’s Storks cross large parts of Africa each year. Along the way, habitat loss from agriculture, urban development and bush encroachment can reduce the places they depend on. Knowing where those pressures are greatest can help turn bird records into better conservation decisions. #WMBD

⚠️ The decline of migratory bird species is a warning sign for biodiversity. Migratory birds depend on a network of ecosystems that stretches across borders. Their conservation depends on international cooperation to preserve migration habitats and address the pressures threatening their survival.

What do winter smog in a valley city and flash floods on a hillside have in common?  In Bosnia and Herzegovina, people shaping the new Biodiversity Platform traced both to weak coordination between institutions and unevenly implemented policies. Read the story: www.besnet.world/story/at-the...

Young people from five Western Balkan countries want a substantive role in biodiversity decisions: contributing to consultations, legislation, strategies and implementation plans. Their Western Balkans Youth statement sets out priorities ahead of #COP17Armenia: www.undp.org/bosnia-herze...

🔔 Nature Kenya is recruiting a consultant to support the country in updating its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, including biodiversity mainstreaming, monitoring and stakeholder consultations. Applications close 11 October 2026. https://bit.ly/4AsOXVo

📄 The @ipbes.net #BizBiodiversity Assessment can be read as an action map: 100+ options, grouped across businesses, governments, financial institutions and civil society. Find the routes that connect better outcomes for nature with benefits for business: https://www.ipbes.net/business-impact

New in the September BES-Net Blast: 🇳🇦 Namibia turns an invasive shrub into local business 🇦🇲 Eco-patrols in Armenia put their field notes into searchable records 📑 Biodiversa+ opens a research call on human-driven ecosystem change Catch up on the whole edition here. 👇 www.besnet.world/newsletter-3/

Who shapes environmental decisions? Who can access land, finance and green jobs? UN Women highlights how gender-responsive approaches affect biodiversity, climate and pollution responses ahead of #COP17Armenia. https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/in-focus/women-and-the-environment

The BESPIN post-Trialogue webinar will revisit the May 2026 regional Trialogue in Skopje and explore how biodiversity and climate knowledge is being applied across Europe and Central Asia. 📅 6 October | 10–11.30 a.m. CEST https://undp.zoom.us/meeting/register/Y-TLbQhqSAKPHXKZfehN8g#/

Treating biodiversity and climate as separate crises can fragment action, and practitioners see the costs on the ground. This video from the BESPIN Regional Trialogue explores what changes when ecosystems, livelihoods and finance are considered together. ▶️ Watch. https://youtu.be/rA3aTozSX1o

🇲🇼 Through new BES Solution Fund support, Malawi’s ecosystem assessment findings will inform biodiversity governance, Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans III implementation. Read the story: www.besnet.world/story/malawi...

⚖️ Rights are the engine of #SustainableDevelopment, not an afterthought. Yet gender equality remains one of today’s deepest human rights gaps. Time is running out. 🚨 These 5️⃣ priority areas show where collective action can change course.

🔔 Opportunity alert! @cabes.bsky.social is offering two free, interactive online courses aimed at building knowledge and sharing experiences for integrating biodiversity into decision-making processes. ⏰ 8:00-16:00 GMT ✅ Open to all Register to participate: elearning.cabes.online/course/view....

🇰🇭 Cambodia’s first national ecosystem assessment is nearing completion. BES Solution Fund support will help make findings accessible in Khmer and strengthen biodiversity decision-making. Read how: www.besnet.world/story/cambod...

Indigenous fire stewardship has shaped biodiversity in many regions but was often reduced or excluded as management shifted to a single approach. Where cultural burning has returned, it has helped restore habitats and reduce wildfire risk. Learn more: www.weforum.org/stories/2021...

🇳🇦 In Namibia’s driest regions, Prosopis drains scarce groundwater and restricts access to grazing. But its biomass can become charcoal, timber or feed. See how BES-Net and @undpbiofin.bsky.social are helping ensure that use supports control without further spread: www.besnet.world/story/from-i...

📌 Tomorrow: hear how Botswana, Colombia and Malawi are using their national ecosystem assessments to put rights-holders at the centre of biodiversity and climate decisions. 📅 25 Sept ⏰ 2:00 p.m. UTC | 3:00 p.m. BST Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Bde9JaWGThC1yiYACYERtQ

🇦🇲 Early signs from COP17 Week in Dilijan: local businesses are asking how to assess their own impacts and dependencies on nature. Through UNDP Armenia, BES-Net is supporting the initiative through programme design, training and facilitation ahead of #COP17Armenia. 🌍

A year on from the ICJ's climate obligations opinion, @unep.org finds Just Transition becoming real law across dozens of countries. And it wants traditional knowledge protected with the same legal weight: real protocols, real benefit-sharing. Read the recommendations: www.unep.org/news-and-sto...

La perte de biodiversité et les changements climatiques sont aussi des enjeux liés aux droits humains. Le 25 septembre, découvrez comment le Botswana, la Colombie et le Malawi appliquent l’approche fondée sur les droits humains grâce aux évaluations des écosystèmes. us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

La pérdida de biodiversidad y el cambio climático también son desafíos para los derechos humanos. El 25 de septiembre, descubre cómo Botswana, Colombia y Malawi aplican el Enfoque Basado en los Derechos Humanos mediante evaluaciones de los ecosistemas. Regístrese: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Women remain underserved by biodiversity finance. @undpbiofin.bsky.social looks at what’s changing, which biodiversity topics are funded and where women-led initiatives can find opportunities. 👇 https://fire.biofin.org/page/unlocking-biodiversity-finance-for-women-through-fire

🇨🇷 Costa Rica's biodiversity strategy named Indigenous priorities on paper. The Raíces programme turned that into practice, backing tourism ventures across seven territories, from Térraba to the Caribbean coast. Read it here: stories.undp.org/costa-rica-w...