From June 26th to 28th, GEO BON held the in-person meeting of its Implementation Committee and Advisory Board in Leipzig, Germany. Following the change in the structure of the network in the summer of 2016, this meeting was the occasion for the working groups, BONs, and task force leads to present their activities, deliverables, and related timelines, that have been integrated in the GEO BON Implementation Plan for 2017-2020.
The IC and AB also discussed which were the priority GEO BON deliverables in the short (2018) and medium (2020) term, and which should be highlighted in the Implementation Plan. Those deliverables are organized around the three core objectives of GEO BON, developing the Essential Biodiversity Variables, developing national, regional, and thematic BONs, and supporting biodiversity assessments and Policy.
This meeting was also the occasion to endorse the thematic Freshwater BON (see more here), and approve the creation of a task force on Remote Sensing in support of EBVs.
Finally, Mike Gill and Henrique Pereira were elected as co-chairs of GEO BON for a 3-years term, and the Implementation Plan was approved by the participants of the meeting (see more here).
See more photos from the IC AB meeting in our gallery on facebook.