What did I get from participating in YESS’s delegation to IPBES8?
Things have been a bit quiet here on Nature Words. This is partly because back in June I was one of the privileged YESS delegates to this year’s IPBES plenary! Even after the plenary was over, I decided to take some time to reflect about the experience before committing words to paper to share my impressions — I ended up taking a bit longer than I anticipated, but better late than never!
If you have been following the blog since its early days, you might remember that this all started with a series of posts from previous YESS delegates, who attended IPBES7 in 2019. We kicked off the network’s blog with a post by Carla Washbourne called “The best intergovernmental platform that you’ve never heard of… until now”, in which Carla explained what exactly is this IPBES thing we hear more and more about when working with ecosystem services. We then heard from Sophie Peter about her experience at IPBES7, giving us a deeper glimpse into the day to day of the plenary’s schedule and discussions. To close this initial IPBES-themes series, Thuận Sarzynski wrote a post reflecting on the process under the thought-provoking title “Did we agree on saving biodiversity?”.
After reading these posts back when they were first published, I was curious about the following year’s plenary. Maybe I could even consider participating in 2020… then COVID-19 hit.
The 2020 plenary was put on hold, with a lot of uncertainty about what would happen. Eventually, the IPBES secretariat set a new date for IPBES8 in 2021. I can only imagine the amount of work the IPBES team had in reorganizing how to conduct this plenary, which was now set to be entirely online!
As did the IPBES secretariat, our YESS delegation also sprang into action to organize a way for us to be present. Under the careful coordination of Giovanni Ávila-Flores, 15 members were selected to accompany the event with YESS classified as an “accredited organization”, which gave us access to the Stakeholder Days and Plenary as observers.
Everything began really with the Stakeholder Days, which took place a few days before the plenary. I had no idea what “stakeholder days” meant before joining the delegation, but there was a lot of material available to read or watch — by the way, I thoroughly recommend IPBES’s YouTube channel! In fact, all Stakeholder Day events, which were divided into an opening plenary, regional sessions, and a closing plenary, were recorded and are available there. During this sort of pre-event, we heard from numerous stakeholders involved in IPBES processes, be that in the condition of report author or person applying the knowledge for policy making, for example. To me, hearing from the people that have helped make and use IPBES products helped set the scene for understanding where these reports come from initially.
And how does that work? Well, before the plenary, various documents are shared among IPBES members. These include what are called “scoping documents”, which are basically very early draft versions of future reports. The scoping documents list exactly what IPBES expects will be in the final report, with particular attention to not duplicate efforts and maintain the same standards used so far. During the plenary, these documents are revised paragraph per paragraph to make sure everyone is in agreement with what is stated there. If someone disagrees with a point, they can suggest an alteration which should then be approved by the rest of the group.
So, while governments discussed the IPBES8 agenda items, I was sitting and watching from home, warming my hands on a cup of coffee before the sun had properly dawned — and other YESS delegates were up much, much, much before dawn to follow the schedule! It seemed a bit surreal to be in this position when looking at pictures of previous (more glamorous) IPBES plenaries. Having been part of the first 100% online IPBES plenary, I have to start by talking about this aspect, which profoundly molded my experience.
Apart from having to adjust to a different time zone, the online format overall worked very well for me. However, the pros and cons of going entirely virtual were certainly being listed and weighed carefully by the organizers. Several government delegations had connection failures to some degree throughout the event, and for the stakeholders’ opening statement, our originally chosen representative couldn’t connect. Fortunately, we had a backup plan — a vital thing to do in any event, be that in-person or virtual.
Fitting the IPBES8 schedule into our other commitments was also a challenge. Of course, none of the members of the YESS delegation were obligated to be present at any moment of the event. We were all volunteering our time and learning, and there was no pressure. This really helped create a friendly atmosphere among the delegation.
One of the highlights for me were the daily break meetings with ONet members. These were quick get-togethers where we could discuss what most caught our attention during the previous session of the plenary and connect with other participants in an informal setting. Flore Lafaye de Micheaux from IUCN was a fantastic moderator for these moments, and took note of all these discussions so we could write a closing statement for the plenary.
And on the not-so-good list I’d have to say I wasn’t thrilled that as observers we could only — you guessed it — observe! Remember what I explained about going over the documents, paragraph per paragraph? It could be frustrating at times to see repeated discussions and some very stubborn delegates fixating on the use of specific words and terminology. Of course, this “stubbornness” was heavily charged with political intentions: these delegates were at the plenary representing their countries’ views and political position towards biodiversity, climate change and other subjects.
After several intense days, the documents revised during the plenary were approved and can now go on to the next stages of being produced. I don’t think I had ever appreciated truly how many steps are taken to publish these reports!
And, to wrap things up, I guess I should answer the question I asked myself when I started writing this piece: What did I get from participating in YESS’s delegation to IPBES8?
Being part of this delegation was a very rich experience, but to summarize it in only a few words I’d say it gave me a fresh perspective. It helped me realize how a global community can get together at the interface between science and policy. I also met new people, talked about new subjects, and just basically had a great time expanding my horizons!
As an early-career researcher, it is certainly worthwhile.
