DNC2022
Biodiversity – Stewardship for Vital Resources
The biodiversity edition, held online around the International Day for Biological Diversity. Its lasting outcome is the DNC2022 Signatory Document.
23–25 May 2022 · Virtual, Virtual
Programme
Keynotes
Four keynote addresses anchored DNC2022’s theme, “Biodiversity – Stewardship for Vital Resources”, spanning global biodiversity policy, environmental-economic accounting and urban ecology.
Day 1 · Monday 23 May 2022
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema
Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Keynote · Biodiversity: The Key to a Sustainable Future
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. She has worked with the UN Environment Programme for over two decades and was the Director of the Law Division at UNEP. Prior to joining the Law Division, she was Deputy Director of the Ecosystems Division, in charge of coordination, operations and programme delivery. She also served as Executive Secretary of the UNEP/Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. Her work at UNEP has focused on development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, including multilateral environmental agreements at national, regional and international levels.
Before joining UNEP, Elizabeth worked with Tanzania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and left as a Counsellor/Senior Legal Counsel. During her time with the Ministry, she was also a lecturer in Public International Law and Conference Diplomacy at Tanzania’s Centre for Foreign Relations and Diplomacy, and a pro bono visiting lecturer at the University of Nairobi Law School and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), Rome.
Day 1 · Monday 23 May 2022
Hien T. Ngo
UN FAO, Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
Keynote · IPBES and the Biodiversity–Climate–Society Nexus
Hien Ngo joined the UN FAO’s Secretariat of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as a biodiversity and pollination expert in 2020. From 2014 she worked at the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as the head of the technical support unit for both the IPBES pollination assessment and the IPBES global assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Before IPBES, Hien worked for the FAO, within the Plant Production and Protection Division, contributing towards the Global Pollination Project/International Pollinator Initiative.
Hien has a background in biology, specialising in entomology; her main interests are improving the state of the conservation of nature and human well-being, international biodiversity policy and the role of assessments within the science-policy interface. She has co-authored many peer-reviewed publications, technical reports and book chapters, and serves on expert groups and advisory boards such as the European Pollinator Initiative expert panel, the IUCN Wild Bee Specialist Group and Promote Pollinators.
Day 2 · Tuesday 24 May 2022
Prof. Tan Puay Yok
National University of Singapore · Singapore Botanic Gardens
Keynote · Perspectives on Enhancing Biodiversity in the City State of Singapore
Prof. Tan Puay Yok is a Dean’s Chair Associate Professor, Programme Director for Master of Landscape Architecture and cluster leader of the Landscape Studies group at the National University of Singapore (NUS). His research, teaching and professional activities focus on the science, policies and practices of urban greening and ecology of the built environment, combining a background in the sciences with experience in urban governance to improve environmental quality and societal well-being. He leads the Urban Ecology Lab@SDE.
He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Landscape and Urban Planning, Associate Editor of the Journal of Urban Ecology and an Editorial Board Member of npj Urban Sustainability. Since the end of 2019 he has been jointly appointed by the National Parks Board, Singapore, as Group Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens — one of only three botanic gardens inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site — and is concurrently Chief Science and Technology Officer for the National Parks Board.
Day 2 · Tuesday 24 May 2022
Dr Bram Edens
Senior Statistician, United Nations Statistics Division
Keynote · The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Agenda
As Senior Statistician with the United Nations Statistics Division in New York, Bram is the project manager of the Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services project, an EU-funded project jointly implemented with UNEP on mainstreaming ecosystem accounting in Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. He has been heavily involved in the development of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting, with a focus on monetary valuation and carbon accounts.
Prior to his return to the UN, Bram worked in various roles for Statistics Netherlands in the National Accounts Department, most recently as Head of industry, energy and construction in the Business Statistics Department. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics from VU University Amsterdam, has published numerous articles on environmental-economic accounting topics and is a contributing author to the IPBES Values Assessment.
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