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The 8th Summit for Subnational Governments & Cities: Taking Action for Biodiversity will gather Governors, Mayors and other subnational government leaders from around the world to engage directly with national leaders and their key stakeholders during the 16th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16). Engagements will focus on subnational biodiversity actions at the local and territorial scale, in contributing to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and the Plan of Action under Decision 15/12.

Every year, the world’s focus turns to nature as we celebrate special days during the months of May and June. 2024 is no exception. Below, you’ll find a snapshot of the special days celebrated and the rallying call for us to do more to restore our natural world and protect biodiversity so both people and […]

Mexico City, Mexico In Mexico City, it is possible to observe 356 species of native birds, of which 47 species are in some local or international risk category. Of the total diversity, 120 species are resident. However, a large number of birds migrate or transit from North America to spend the winter, as the city […]

Opinion piece by Gareth Presch, CEO, World Health Innovation Summit

Valuing urban wetlands and human well-being 40% of all plant and animal species live or breed in wetlands. Wetlands play a significant role in supporting ecosystems and biodiversity, and they are deeply connected to human well-being. Although they cover only around 6 percent of the earth’s land surface, 40 percent of all plant and animal […]

The UN 2023 Water Conference – formally known as the 2023 Conference for the Midterm Comprehensive Review of Implementation of the UN Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018-2028) – took place in New York, from 22-24 March 2023, and was co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands, with the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) as Secretariat.

During China Day on 13 December 2022, a new initiative titled “Biodiversity Charming City” – operated by ICLEI and China Environment News – announced six Chinese cities who achieved the Charming Cities title, namely: Chengdu, Kunming, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Nanyang, and Shenzhen.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) from 7 to 19 December 2022 in Montréal provided the ideal opportunity for the CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature global partnership initiatives to highlight their notable progress in recent months.

World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually on 2 February, in commemoration of the initial signing of the Convention on Wetlands in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar.

In the build-up to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15, ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center, in collaboration with ICLEI’s regional offices, provided capacity-building webinars to demonstrate uploading actions and commitments to the CitiesWithNature Action Platform.