Workshop to launch the CIFOR and ICRAF biodiversity platform 2nd-5th March 2006, CIFOR headquarters, Bogor and Happy Valley (GG House), Ciawi, Bogor, Indonesia

This workshop was the launching event of the joint CIFOR-ICRAF Biodiversity Platform. Its objectives were i) to share expertise and experiences to give the Platform a large and solid ground, ii) to get a common understanding of what the Platform should be and where it should go (with targeted outcomes and outputs) and iii) to design the first research project of the Platform. 30 scientists from both institutions joined hands to define common objectives and to discuss the framework and potential operational modes of the Biodiversity Platform. In addition to an interesting and important set of innovative ideas, research questions and gaps, it resulted in an agreed set of goal, objectives and principles and the Biodiversity Platform is now officially launched . CIFOR and ICRAF committed to include the joint initiative in their respective Medium-Term Plans. The CIFOR-ICRAF Biodiversity Platform will focus on biodiversity issues in multifunctional landscape mosaics . Both institutions intend to take advantage of their perceived objectivity to address issues related to the combination of conservation and development interests. An emphasis is put on local people’s perspectives but the guiding principle is to work with multiple stakeholders and at different governance levels. The centres have the staffing capacity to undertake inter-disciplinary research encompassing biophysical, socio-economic and policy issues. They can thus rigorously address issues of “people and biodiversity”, while also focusing on issues, such as cross-sectoral influences on land use, that are not addressed in many sector-specific research institutions. The Platform wants to: • Promote dialogue and networking to catalyze the development of new thinking, approaches, and practice of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use in multifunctional landscapes . • Provide opportunities for: o Lesson sharing, especially across disciplines, sites and scales. o Synergies (e.g. of resources, skills, mandates). o Added value (e.g. through syntheses and generalization). The Biodiversity Platform aims to collaboratively deliver international public goods on the following themes: • Relationships between biodiversity and livelihood security in dynamic multifunctional landscapes. • Ecological processes and spatial dynamics of biodiversity in landscape mosaics. • Opportunities and constraints in incentives for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and equitable benefit sharing in landscape mosaics. • Potential for harmonization of customary and statutory rules and laws in relation to multifunctionality of landscape mosaics.

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