Report on CAFF Board Meeting
Reported by: Masaki UCHIDA (NIPR)
Related Research Program: Land
The Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Board Meeting was held three days from September 25th to September 27th, 2024. It was the first meeting in three years, and Denmark was the chair country. Until now, the meeting has been held in areas where indigenous peoples of the Arctic live, but this time it was held online. The number of participants varied depending on the day, but it was about 55 people.
The topic that took up the most time at this meeting was AAB: Actions for Arctic Biodiversity. AAB had an activity plan formulated for 2013 – 2023, but since CAFF had stopped its activities after 2022, it has not been formulated on an ongoing basis. The actions to be formulated in the future (2025-2035) will take into account the global targets of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a new global goal for biodiversity adopted in December 2022.
The Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP) gave reports from four groups: terrestrial, marine, freshwater, and coastal. After introducing their activities and results to date and an overview of their current organization, they reported on the delay in activities due to COVID-19. As for plans, they reported that they are working on initiatives to directly collaborate with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and The Group on Earth Observations Network (GEO BON).
As for the joint project with AMAP, “Impacts of Climate Change on Arctic Ecosystems and the Associated Feedbacks,” which began preparations in 2019 and launched a steering committee in 2021, and other ongoing programs and projects, the main focus was on introducing activities to date, and to restart in the future, they confirmed the active members and reported on their policy of revising and proceeding with future activity plans in light of the scientific, political, and social changes that occurred during the suspension of activities.