BACKGROUND AND STRUCTURE OF THE FORUM
In decision 15/27, paragraph 2, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity requested the Executive Secretary to organize a peer-review process on annexes I to VI to this decision, to convene a moderated Open-ended Online Forum on the results of the peer-review process and to make the outcomes available for consideration by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice.
In addition, through paragraph 9 of the same decision, the COP invited Parties, other Governments and organizations to submit information to the Executive Secretary on experiences and relevant initiatives of horizon scanning, monitoring and managing emerging infectious diseases affecting biodiversity and, especially, the health of wild animals and plants, caused by alien pathogens or parasites and invasive alien species acting as vectors or hosts for pathogens or parasites.
Pursuant to the above-noted requests, the Secretariat issued notification 2023-017, inviting Parties and Organisations to participate in these processes, and is convening an Open-Ended Online Forum. This Forum aims to:
- Facilitate the exchange of views on the annexes I to VI to decision 15/27. (See Thread #1 for information). Relevant documents for this discussion can be found on the peer review page .
- Provide an opportunity for exchange of information on relevant initiatives of horizon scanning, monitoring and managing emerging infectious diseases caused by alien pathogens or parasites and invasive alien species (see Thread #2 for information).
OPERATION OF THE FORUM
Schedule
The Online Forum will be open on 19 May at 10:00 am Montreal time (EDT), and it will close on 26 May at 17:00 pm Montreal time (EDT). Participants will be able to post at any time during that period.
The Online forum will be moderated by: Mr. Andy Sheppard from Australia, and Ms. Ntakadzeni Tshidada from South Africa.
How to participate
To participate and post comments or questions in the Forum, you must sign-in using your CBD account.
The forum will be organized according to specific threads (topics). Participants will be invited to consider a number of guiding questions under the threads of the forum, and to post comments and engage in the discussions throughout the duration of the forum. All threads will be active during the entire forum period.
If you encounter technical difficulties or if you have any questions about the operation of the forum, please send an e-mail to: Invasives@cbd.int
During the forum, Participants are invited to observe the following guidelines:
- Briefly introduce themselves when posting their first message, including their name, country and institutional affiliation;
- Keep their messages short, concise and focused;
- Ensure that the messages are relevant to the topic/question being discussed;
- Make the subject header of your post as descriptive as possible about the content of the message so that other participants can easily decide which messages to read and respond to;
- When submitting their comments, participants are kindly requested to be as specific as possible, including providing concreate text proposals for their inputs;
- Make sure that the text or files attached (if any) do not contain viruses, corrupted files or any other similar file deficiencies;
- Be respectful of others’ viewpoints.
