ICSU ROAP and the APN Workshop on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Asia and the Pacific

The ICSU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific will participate in a scoping workshop on biodiversity and ecosystem services that will be held at the United Nations University (UNU), Tokyo, on 13 – 15 February 2011. The workshop will be organised by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN). It aims to analyse gaps in biodiversity and ecosystem services research and identify priority areas of research in biodiversity and ecosystem services that it will prioritise for APN funding support in future. This is a new activity of the APN. The analysis will include the identification of research and policy needs, focal areas, research gaps, and the areas of activity where APN can be expected to  make a difference considering that the Asia-Pacific region is a densely populated region where human coexistence with nature are heavily affected by changes in the environment. The Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 (GBO-3) noted that the degradation of the services provided to human societies by functioning ecosystems are often closely related to changes in the abundance and distribution of dominant or keystone species, rather than to global extinctions; even moderate biodiversity change globally can result in disproportionate changes for some groups of species that have a strong influence on ecosystem services. There are also links between climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem services that need to be better understood. Last year ICSU launched its new interdisciplinary global research programme on ecosystem change and society (PECS). An international programme office will be established in Stockholm in 2011.