BiodivEarth will co-lead a panel discussion with the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia.
Bringing together experiences from diverse socio-ecological contexts, the session will explore how local stewards, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, researchers and conservation organisations can work together to assess and strengthen resilience.
The discussion will focus on practical approaches to co-designing resilience assessment and monitoring with communities, combining Indigenous and local knowledge with scientific approaches. Speakers will share experiences of identifying resilience factors, developing locally relevant indicators and using monitoring results to inform decision-support tools and adaptive management.
The panel
The panel will bring together perspectives on community-led initiatives, resilience research and long-term monitoring:
– Paule Gros, Director and Co-Founder of BiodivEarth, will introduce the project and its Community of Practice and facilitate the panel discussion.
– Paulina G. Karim, CEO of ScapesLab and affiliated with National Dong Hwa University (NDHU), will share experiences of resilience monitoring in Xinshe village, Taiwan.
– Olivier Hymas, Independent Researcher with ICCA Consortium Europe and VALCOM, USMB, will contribute perspectives on approaches to resilience assessment and monitoring.
– Suneetha Subramanian, Research Fellow and Academic Associate at UNU-IAS, will share perspectives on financing co-designed monitoring in landscapes.
The session will also explore how locally grounded approaches and monitoring tools can support implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), while fostering knowledge exchange and new opportunities for collaboration.
Event details
- Date: 29 October 2026
- Time: 15:15-16:15 (UTC+4)
- Location: Green Zone, Main Stage, CBD COP17, Yerevan, Armenia
Find out more about the event here.
We are excited to connect with colleagues and partners in Yerevan, exchange experiences and explore new ways to support socio-ecological resilience and biodiversity action.
