Thursday, August 16, 2007

4th International Conference on Environmental Education in Ahmedabad, India (24-28 November 2007)

Dear Equator Net members,

The 4th International Conference on Environmental Education will take place on 24-28 November 2007 in Ahmedabad, India.

The Conference will be a forum to show that Education works, to make it a part of decision-making, and scale it up. It will be a platform for sharing of practices and learnings; exchange of ideas and information on ongoing and planned initiatives in the field of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) the world over. The event will highlight partnerships between the two fields, discuss the role of EE as a Champion of ESD and deliberate on partnerships with several other disciplines / organizations.

The Conference will bring together participants from all over the world, including educators from the field of environment, health, water and sanitation, human rights, gender, peace, citizenship, social justice and others, civil society /NGOs, corporations, academics, media, government officials and representatives of UN agencies. You can register online. Please note that the Early Bird Registration ends August 31, 2007 and that participants will have to pay a conference fee.

Call For Papers And Proposals

You are invited to submit papers and posters related to the conference’s working themes. Note the following deadlines:

  • Last date of Submission of Abstracts extended to August 21, 2007 .
  • Acceptance of abstracts: September 7, 2007
  • Deadline for the submission of papers: September 30, 2007

For further information, visit: www.tbilisiplus30.org/index.htm

Warm regards,

Gaby

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Equator Net Discussion: Does the Equator Net need a Blog?

Discussion Topic: Does the Equator Net need a Blog?

Dear Equator Net members,

The enclosed message from Yasmin (yasmingn@yahoo.com) may be the start of a new discussion thread. Please do not hesitate to send your feedback to the network – the recommended steps for Equator Net contributions are attached.

Dear Yasmin, it would be great to see the proposal you mentioned. Thank you for your contribution!

Warm regards,

Gaby

Dear Mr. Sodhi and Equator Net Members,

Dear Mr. Sodhi, congratulations for your initiative in sharing these cases with Equator Net. Like other members said, I also think that sharing experiences is very important in the learning process and sharing best practices experiences can motivate and inspire people that are in similar processes in social and environmental projects. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy the Equator Initiative and partners work, which I had the opportunity to get know better in Taba Community-COP8.

I also agree with Mr. Balakrishna that we could establish some formats to the stories presentation. I was thinking also that we could even create a group Blog in internet, where we could add texts, pictures and videos. We could create sections by themes, geographical areas, Section for comments, campaigns, etc. What do you think? I’ve been working, lately, in a proposal that involves knowledge exchange network using blog and discussion groups, at the NGO I work. If the equator net members are interested, I can present this proposal for discussion. And we can create a team to work on it.

This could be a good activity to add to the great work that the Equator Initiative have been doing with the Learning Exchange Program. What the Equator Initiative Team think about ?

If there is more members in the Equator net that share from this view, are interested in develop these ideas and have more things to add, please give your opinion.

Best Regards,

Yasmin [yasmingn@yahoo.com]

Yasmin Grummt Naddaf

Environmental Services Association – ASA

Curitiba, Brazil

Recommended Steps for Sending Equator Net Contributions

Dear Equator Net members,

We would like to make sure that this recent, very exciting, and hopefully continuous exchange of information between Equator Net members is fruitful and interesting to the users of this list serve.

The Equator Net is currently 550 members strong and has great potential to benefit from an interactive sharing of resources and experiences. To ensure that this exchange continues to be valuable, please take a look at the following recommended steps to send your Equator Net contributions:

Draft a message that is of relevance for community-based initiatives working in poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation. Examples of contributions to the network are updates on environmental and poverty reduction issues, upcoming conferences, expressions of interests, financial opportunities such as grants or fellowships, educational opportunities, discussion points, organizational and personal experiences, and other pieces of information that may be of interest to the network. Please do not use the Equator Net as a contact list for organizational or personal fundraising inquiries.

  1. Please describe the information you would like to share with other Equator Net members – do not send attachments without a clear explanation of why this information may be useful for Equator Net members.
  2. Do not forget to include your name, organization, and email address – additional information is of course voluntary, yet other members might be curious to learn in what country you are located or what kind of work you do! ;-)
  3. Send your contribution to equator-net@groups.undp.org only if it is of relevance to all Equator Net members. If you would like to respond to individual senders of previous Equator Net messages please do not use the reply button (your response will go to all Equator Net members via equator-net@groups.undp.org). Assuming that all Equator Net members will follow step 3, you should be able to find the email address of each sender included in their original message.
  4. Once your message has been accepted by the moderator it will be delivered to all Equator Net members. Please keep in mind that your message may be sent out later via a consolidated reply. Therefore, please be patient should your message not be delivered to your inbox right away.

Even though the Equator Net is administered in English due to limited translation capacities, we encourage all Equator Net members to participate in Spanish, French, or Portuguese as well.

Should you have additional questions about sharing your information and experiences via the Equator Net please do not hesitate to contact me at gabriela.tobler@undp.org.

Thank you for your active participation. The Equator Net looks forward to your contributions!

Warm regards,

Gaby

Responses to Equator Net Discussion "Sharing Knowledge and Learning from Each Other via the Equator Net"

Discussion Topic: Sharing Knowledge and Learning from each other via the Equator Net

Dear Equator Net Members,

I would like to thank you for the inspiring contributions and replies we received lately. It is exciting to see that the Equator Net is turning into an interactive network!

In response to the increased email traffic and the request from several members we decided to consolidate all remaining responses to the message from Prabhjot Sodhi, National Coordinator of the GEF UNDP Small Grants Program in India - please scroll down to see Prabhjot’s original message and related recent responses.

Please keep sending us your input, funding opportunities, discussion points etc. and thank you once again for your much appreciated messages!

Warm regards,

Gaby

Original Equator Net Message

Dear Equator Net members,

Hello to one and all, I have been thinking of late that we need to share and learn from each other's experiences, knowledge and leverage resources and skills. Taking a start, I am sharing two stories/case studies of GEF UNDP Small grants program (SGP) projects in India for sharing with your partners. We will keep sharing more project stories and we would request you to ask other partners on your network to share success stories on their part so that we can cross learn. Enjoy... Looking forward for your comments, guidance and support.

Cheers and very best wishes.

Prabhjot Sodhi
National Coordinator, GEF UNDP Small Grants ProgramCentre for Environment Education (CEE)
New Delhi, India

English Responses

Dear Mr. Sodhi,

I was glad to see this mail and your interest to share the experiences that is very useful as well as vital to move forward not just the conservation agenda but also to link conservation with development as demonstrated by several SGP projects world-over.

However, I feel that it might be very helpful if you can work on a possible format for the stories to be written up. This can help get some consistency in the kind of information that people might put in as well as provide a common thread to the ‘story-line’. I am sure we can work on getting some products out of this, including providing the needed support to MDG initiatives being put together by UNDP themselves in different parts of the world.

Best regards

Bala Pisupati [pisupati@ias.unu.edu]

Response to message from Bala Pisupati:

Dear Dr. Bala,

Good to hear from you as equator-net mail recipient. You may recall that we met at Khulna press club and during your presentation of Bangaldesh National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan at Dhaka. Are you not at IUCN?

However, you have rightly mentioned for having a kind of format for compiling the conservation stories through UNDP-GEF-SGP format development. I do agree but we the Bangladeshi are unfortunate for NOT being eligible yet.

Regards,

Mowdudur Rahman [mowdud_ccec@yahoo.com]

Director, Centre for Coastal Environmental Conservation, Khulna, Bangladesh

Response to message from Bala Pisupati:

Hi Bala,

Great to see you online. I just would like to get an update of the action points we had during the MEA Brainstorming Session which you conducted in Bangkok last October 2006.

Best regards,

Donato Bumacas [kmcydkalinga@yahoo.com]

KAMICYDI, Philippines

Dear Mr. Sodhi and Equator Net Members,

Dear Mr. Sodhi, congratulations for your initiative in sharing these cases with Equator Net. Like other members said, I also think that sharing experiences is very important in the learning process and sharing best practices experiences can motivate and inspire people that are in similar processes in social and environmental projects. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy the Equator Initiative and partners work, which I had the opportunity to get know better in Taba Community-COP8.

I also agree with Mr. Balakrishna that we could establish some formats to the stories presentation. I was thinking also that we could even create a group Blog in internet, where we could add texts, pictures and videos. We could create sections by themes, geographical areas, Section for comments, campaigns, etc. What do you think? I’ve been working, lately, in a proposal that involves knowledge exchange network using blog and discussion groups, at the NGO I work. If the equator net members are interested, I can present this proposal for discussion. And we can create a team to work on it.

This could be a good activity to add to the great work that the Equator Initiative have been doing with the Learning Exchange Program. What the Equator Initiative Team think about ?

If there is more members in the Equator net that share from this view, are interested in develop these ideas and have more things to add, please give your opinion.

Best Regards,

Yasmin Grummt Naddaf [yasmingn@yahoo.com]

Environmental Services Association – ASA, Curitiba, Brazil

Dear Colleagues,

We are trying to get a similar initiative up and running, but focusing on issues of mobile pastoralism and the environment. We were asked to do this through our partnership with GEF and I hope that we will have a web-forum up and running in about a month or so. The forum is initially for GEF staff and will be private access, but if you are interested to join then please let me know.

Dr. Jonathan Davies [Jonathan.Davies@iucn.org]

Global Coordinator, World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism

IUCN-EARO, Nairobi

Tel +254 20 890 606-12

Mob +254 736 855 440

Visit WISP - http://www.iucn.org/wisp/

Respuestas en Español

Prabhjot Sodhi:

Es interesante su propuesta para aprender de lecciones, ejes motivadores, y también dificultades en la ejecución de experiencias. En Ecuador estaríamos dispuestos a participar con dos experiencias del PNUD. Recuperación de productos andinos en sistemas agroforestales y Manejo de Fuentes de agua por las comunidades en la parroquia Juan Montalvo. Ud cuenta con un formato para exponer las experiencias por favor envíenos.

Saludos

Consuelo Cederana [cederenauio@andinanet.net]

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Equator Net message from Prabhjot Sodhi, GEF UNDP Small Grants Program, India

Dear Equator Net members,

Hello to one and all, I have been thinking of late that we need to share and learn from each other's experiences, knowledge and leverage resources and skills.

Taking a start, i am sharing two stories/case studies of GEF UNDP Small grants program (SGP) projects in India for sharing with your partners. We will keep sharing more project stories and we would request you to ask other partners on your network to share success stories on their part so that we can cross learn. Enjoy...

Looking forward for your comments, guidance and support. Cheers and very best wishes..

With Best regards,

Prabhjot Sodhi
National Coordinator
GEF UNDP Small Grants Program
Centre for Environment Education (CEE)


Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Fellowship opportunities with TWAS

Dear Equator Net members,

We have an exciting new opportunity from
TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. The objective of the organization is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in the South. The organization is currently accepting applications for various fellowships.

Please note these fellowships require the applicant to have at least a Master’s degree in science. The fellowships are divided into four categories: Postgraduate Training, Postdoctoral Research, Advanced Research, and Research Collaboration. For additional information and application details please visit:
http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~twas/Exchange.html

Warm regards,
Gaby

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Participate in Changemakers online competitions

Dear Equator Net members,

Changemakers, an initiative of Ashoka, invites successful organizations to submit innovative solutions to specific problems in diverse Changemakers online competitions.

The winners of the frequently changing competitions will be those entries that best meet the following criteria: Innovation, Social Impact, and Sustainability.

The competitions are open to all types of organizations (charitable organizations, private companies, or public entities) from all countries. Entries are only considered if they

  • reflect the theme of the competition,
  • are beyond the stage of idea, concept, or research, and, at a minimum, are at the demonstration stage and indicate success.
  • are submitted in English or Spanish, and are complete.

The three winners of each competition receive US$5,000. All entrants gain great exposure on the Changemakers website and have their entry read by a global community of innovators and investors.

The deadline for submission of your innovation entry is roughly 11 weeks after the start of each competition.

To find out more about ongoing and future competitions please visit http://www.changemakers.net/competitions or visit the Changemakers website’s Frequently Asked Questions page. For additional questions please contact Ashoka Global Headquarters via the following page: http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/contact

Warm regards,
Gaby