The UK Biodiversity Research
Advisory Group
The UK’s National Biodiversity
Research Platform
Terms of
Reference
UK BRAG exists to:
- Identify, promote and facilitate
biodiversity research to support UK and individual country
biodiversity action plan commitments1;
- Coordinate effective and efficient UK
engagement with European biodiversity research issues, fulfilling
the role of a national biodiversity research platform;
- Contribute to effective biodiversity
research networking in the UK, leading to increased
interdisciplinary capacity;
- Support knowledge transfer activities in relation to
biodiversity research.
The UK BRAG Secretariat have produced a leaftet to summarise the
role, activities and work of UK BRAG; the leaflet can be downloaded
here. Requests for hard copies
should be made by email to Email plug-in to: undefined ukbrag@jncc.gov.uk
Latest BRAG news and events:
BES - UK BRAG
Workshop Held Tuesday 13th September 2011, Sheffield.
What next for the UK NEA and
IPBES?
The report giving the findings of the
National Ecosystem
Assessment (NEA) was launched in June 2011. This
report, which analyses the value of the UK's natural environment by
taking account of the economic, health and social benefits we get
from nature, is the first of its kind at a fully national scale. It
is important that the results are incorporated into UK policy, and
this special session is an opportunity to discuss how this can
happen – and to hear how the NEA is already having an effect on
policy.
At an international level, the
Intergovernmental
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES) will be the mechanism that addresses the gaps in the
science policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. So
it seems logical that the UK NEA should also feed into, and inform,
IPBES.
The session had two plenary speakers:
Prof. Steve Albon, from the James Hutton
Institute, jointly chaired the NEA with Prof. Robert Watson of
Defra, and Dr. Andrew Stott, is the UK
representative for Defra on the IPBES. Four 15-minute
presentations examined the practical aspects and experiences
of incorporating ecosystem services into policy. These were
given by Prof. Jim Harris (Cranfield University),
Dr Laurence Couldrick (Westcountry Rivers Trust),
Steve Evison (Resources for Change) and Dr
Stewart Clarke (Natural England).
Participation in the event was significant,
with the 80 seat room full to capacity throughout.
A report of the
session (Pdf) is now available, as are the speakers
presentations (all as Pdf files); Prof Steve Albon,
"The UK National Ecosytem Assessment: Key findings and future
research directions". Prof Jim Harris;
Bringing ecosystem services into the planning regime". Laurence
Couldrick; "Delivering biodiversity as a by-product of other
ecosystem services - can it be done?" Steve Evison; "Resources for
change: Valuing goods and services from landscapes in North Wales".
Stewart
Clarke; "Ecosystem services in practice - experiences from 3
upland pilot projects" Dr Andrew
Stott; "Creating an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services".
There is a consultation open until 4th November 2011 to obtain views on the possible scope of the IPBES work program. To contribute your views, or to sign up to the new IPBES stakeholder hub, follow the links.
A report highlighting biodiversity impacts of indirect land use change caused by unsustainable biofuel production is now available.
Progress on IPBES - UK Government pledges £2M over the next four years to help establish the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Key External Links
Key external links relating to
UK BRAG can be found here
1 UK BRAG will not
address research needs associated with individual HAPs and SAPs,
instead focusing on cross-cutting, generic issues.