ICLEI invites local governments to join its Local Action for Biodiversity Initiative

: Mayors, maoyoral representatives and LAB Steering Committee members at the Durban Committment signing ceremony.

Under the auspices of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), 21 Pioneer local governments from around the world are currently participating in the urban biodiversity project: Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB). The 21 pioneers recently held their second international workshop where they strongly supported the continuity and expansion of this initiative. These cities now encourage a world-wide invitation to other local governments to join LAB as part of a new project intake, due to start in 2009.

Following the Mayors Conference “Local Action for Biodiversity”, which was a parallel event to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP-9 in Bonn (March 2008), and which attracted over 100 mayors and senior decision makers from local level who expressed their commitment to the CBD and their approval of the “Bonn Call for Action”, a formal decision by the COP 9 promoted the engagement of local authorities and cities in addressing biodiversity issues efficiently through local action. The decision also noted the contribution of ICLEI’s Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB) Project and IUCN's Countdown 2010 initiative to local action.

The second International LAB workshop, which took take place in Durban (South Africa) from 8-10 September, brought together the 21 Pioneer local governments participating in ICLEI’s Local Action for Biodiversity project. Significantly, the workshop hosted the signing ceremony for the Durban Commitment: a momentous milestone for cities and biodiversity. This groundbreaking international commitment, which forms part of the LAB project process and which was developed and founded by the 21 Pioneers themselves “is a commitment and model by local government, for local government and the communities they serve, to protect and enhance biodiversity at the local level. It recognizes that biodiversity is the variety of life on earth on which human well-being is dependant and that it provides ecosystem services that underpin all of our community’s needs. In addition, the signatories will entrench their commitment to global biodiversity by becoming a formal partner of countdown 2010 and signing its Declaration.”

As the pilot pioneering phase of LAB will draw to a close in June 2009, after three successful years involving these 21 globally spread cities, ICLEI and IUCN, who partner closely in the development and expansion of LAB, are now initiating a new phase in which many more local governments on all continents shall benefit from cooperation, exchange, knowledge transfer, the availability of guiding and training material, relations with the scientific community and targeted advocacy efforts.

Based on these pilot successes, along with widely expressed interest from all corners, ICLEI’s Local Action for Biodiversity programme, in partnership with IUCN, now invites all cities and local governments to join this prestigious list of pioneers in a new LAB project intake which is now open.

The 21 Pioneer Cities are:

If you are interested in joining Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB), please email lab@iclei.org or submit this questionnaire upon which LAB, which is globally coordinated from the ICLEI Africa Offices in Cape Town, South Africa, will contact you with more details.

For more information about Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB) see:

Information on joining leaflet

The future components of Local Action for Biodiversity

"Joining LAB" tab on LAB website

ICLEI website