COP16 Side Events: ISSG Drives Target 6 Action & Tool | Page 43

COP16, like its host city and country, was diverse and vibrant, and had an atmosphere that facilitated connections and positivity. Between official events and negotiations, Kevin Smith (IUCN Secretariat) and Aileen Mill (ISSG Policy Co-lead) met with many parties and organisations who are either doing great work in the management of IAS, including using IUCN ISSG resources and expertise, or were interested in working with them to develop and implement actions. There are many opportunities to use the toolkit, and work with parties to strengthen the actions in NBSAPS and develop NISSAPs or create IAS focussed projects. Many discussions focussed on where to find information about management actions that work, indicating that there is a huge demand to see greater sharing of best practice and solutions on how to tackle particular species.

So, what next? Our priorities following Cali are to increase awareness of the toolkit and resources – The toolkit has been published on the CBD webpages in six languages and can be accessed here : https://www.cbd.int/invasive/cbdtoolkit. Additional resources including flyers on the toolkit priority sites and stakeholder engagement and training materials on international data standards, understanding pathways and  priority sites are also available on these pages. We are planning a webinar to introduce the toolkit and NISSAP guidance to the ISSG, bearing in mind that we see these as dynamic resources that can be added to and updated. We hope to see work with the IALG-IAG to continue, particularly to support capacity building and sharing of information.  

IUCN and IUCN SSC ISSG co-hosted several side events at COP which all focused on the provision of data and guidance to support progress across the whole-of-society towards Target 6:

An official side event with the CBD secretariat and members of the Inter Agency Liaison Group on Invasive Alien Species (IALG-IAS) on their cross-sectoral contributions towards Target 6 since the previous COP. This included the launch of the ‘CBD Toolkit on IAS’ which was produced by IUCN, ISSG and the CBD secretariat in collaboration with the IALG-IAS and funded by the government of Japan and the EU. The aim of the toolkit is to provide guidance to Parties to take action to meet Target 6, and to develop National Invasive Species Strategies and Action Plans (NISSAP). An event at the IUCN Pavilion on the data and guidance produced by IUCN and partners (including CABI, GBIF) to support progress towards Target, including www.griis.org, https://www.iucngisd.org/gisd/ and IUCN EICAT. IUCN CBD COP16 Pavilion Day 2 (Invasive Alien Species (IAS) session at 4.44)

An official side event led by the Government of Japan on the importance of taking a whole-of-society approach to achieve Target 6.

As part of ‘biodiversity and health day’, the IUCN ISSG contributed to an event on IAS and health, and presented the results of a report produced by ISSG and IUCN on how approaches for IAS prevention and management can be applied to pathogens. Here the discussion considered the role IAS play in biodiversity-health interlinkages, and the need to take a One Health approach when managing IAS, especially highlighting where prevention will lead to co-benefits to human and domestic animal and plant health

An event hosted by Task Force on Nature related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), along with Fauna&Flora, Anglo American and IUCN on the need to get businesses thinking about IAS and the role they can play and to garner support for a new Initiative being developed by FF/AA/IUCN.

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