From 21 to 26 January 2013, government representatives and leading experts on biodiversity are coming together for the first official plenary meeting of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services, which was founded in Panama City in April 2012. UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, the Mayor of Bonn Jürgen Nimptsch and Parliamentary State Secretary Ursula Heinen jointly opened the international conference in the Plenary Chamber of the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB). more

23 October 2012 marks the official start of the national project on the worldwide TEEB process (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversty), which will illustrate the economic value of nature in Germany. more

The 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was very successful. The focus was, as expected, on financing the Strategic Plan 2010-2020 and the Aichi targets. In Hyderabad the parties agreed to double the relevant funding by 2015, thereby making great progress towards achieving the goals. more
www.cbd.int/cop11

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the European Union's LIFE programme experts from the European Commission, nature conservation agencies, the government and the Länder discussed the orientation of LIFE from 2014. more

"20 years, 20 percent – how to proceed with Natura 2000"? This is the question being discussed by nature conservation stakeholders at the Natura 2000 summit in Berlin on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Natura 2000. more

At a meeting in Panama, the international community decided that the UN Secretariat for the newly established Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES for short, will be located in Bonn, Germany. This decision in favour of Bonn also presents an international acknowledgement of Germany’s continued and convincing commitment to the conservation of biological diversity. more

A biodiversity resource assessment conducted in the Southern Leyte Province in the Philippines in November 2011 led to the discovery of at least two new frog species. The assessment was launched under a project funded by the German Environment Ministry's International Climate Initiative (ICI) and a project by UNDP and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). more

31 March 2012 marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the ASCOBANS Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas. The Irish Sea and parts of the North East Atlantic were included only recently. The goal of cooperation under ASCOBANS is to ensure transboundary protection of cetaceans and dolphins against adverse effects of human activities. more

The tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals was successfully concluded in Bergen/Norway on 25 November. Several species were moved to the most stringent category of protection. more
www.cms.int

On 16 November Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen was presented with a certificate recognizing the inscription of German beech forests on the UNESCO World Heritage List. more

World Heritage Sites in Germany (video)

UNESCO World Natural Heritage Beech Forests