Tokyo, 22nd April 2025, the Keidanren Nature Conservation Council (KNCC), the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOEJ) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly hosted a hybrid seminar entitled “Societies in Harmony with Nature: locally-led landscape approaches”. The objective of the seminar was to provide updates on implementation of the Community Development and Knowledge Management for SATOYAMA Initiative (COMDEKS) Phase 4 by the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) at UNDP. Japanese private sector companies and members of the Keidanren Nature Conservation Fund (KNCF) who have been making financial contributions to the COMDEKS programme since 2023 were the key target audience.
Caption: seminar speaker group photo with members of the MOEJ, KNCC and KNCF, IPSI, GEF SGP and UNDP Tokyo Representation Office.
The seminar was well attended with over 150 participants joining in person and online, including participants from the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), and academia.
Mr. Keiji Nishizawa, Chairperson of KNCC, in his opening remarks noted that there is urgent need to take concrete nature-positive actions to reverse the deteriorating trend of the earth’s natural environment and biodiversity, and to spread good practices and positive impacts to other parts of the world. He emphasised that the COMDEKS programme provides good examples of initiatives that address biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of natural capital by local communities, illustrating the Satoyama concept of societies living in harmony with nature.
Mr. Yutaka Matsuzawa, Vice-Minister for Global Environmental Affairs, MOEJ, expressed his satisfaction that MOEJ, which has been supporting COMDEKS since 2011, is now joined by the Keidanren Nature Conservation Fund, stressing the uniqueness of this public-private co-financing in the field of biodiversity conservation. He further expressed his wish to see many good practices coming out of theprogramme to be further disseminated and promoted worldwide to encourage community-based sustainable natural resources management.
Ms. Rissa Edoo, the SGP Partnership Specialist at UNDP, presented an overview of COMDEKS Phase 4 and its alignment to the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets, while Dr. Suneetha Subramanian, Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute of Advance Studies for Sustainability (UNU-IAS), gave an overview of Resilience Indicator Toolkit which is being utilized in the COMDEKS Programme as a participatory tool to help mobilize communities and stakeholders toward the planning, design, implementation and monitoring conservation initiatives in their landscapes/seascapes. As such the link between locally-led conservation efforts and global biodiversity priorities were clearly presented.
Three SGP National Coordinators, Mr. Aimé Kamga Fogue from Cameroon, Ms. Ariana Araujo Resenterra from Costa Rica and Ms. Gökmen Argun from Türkiye, also participated in the seminar. Their presentations on national COMDEKS progress and implementation gave the audience very concrete ideas about how COMDEKS activities were supporting communities to address local environmental challenges while enhancing livelihoods and building resilience. Their presentations were supported by short videos, highlighting important ecosystems with where the local projects are being implemented.
Caption: Community pannel discussion featuring National Coordinators from Camerron, Costa Rica and Türkiye
In summarising the seminar presentations, Dr. Tsunao Watanabe, KNCF Steering Committee Chairperson and Director of the International Partnership for SATOYAMA Initiative, reiterated the importance of the landscape/seascape approach in biodiversity conservation, and expressed his wish to see further concrete project activities with landscape-level results with joint support from all COMDEKS partners.
Lastly, Ms. Hideko Hadzialic, Director of the UNDP Tokyo Representation Office, applauded the Japanese private sector’s interest and proactive approach of providing support for biodiversity conservation in developing countries. She stressed that the community-driven strategy development and decision-making process utilized by the COMDEKS programme is most critical in creating the local ownership needed to ensure sustainability and long-term impact.
Seminar videos:
Cameroon: COMDEKS in the Bogo Sahelian landscape
Turkey: COMDEKS in the Samsun wetland landscape
Costa Rica: COMDEKS seascape approach on the islands in the Gulf of Nicoya
About COMDEKS
COMDEKS was launched in 2011 as a flagship programme of the SATOYAMA Initiative, a global effort to promote the sustainable use of natural resources in landscapes and seascapes with local communities. With support from MOEJ and the CBD Secretariat, UNDP has been implementing COMDEKS through the Small Grants Programme for over a decade. Since its launch in 2011, COMDEKS has supported over 400 community projects in 20 countries across three phases. In 2022, the programme entered its fourth phase, with support from MOEJ as well as the KNCF. COMDEKS Phase 4 is being implemented in 15 countries and is currently supporting locally-led projects across a range of landscapes and seascapes focusing on biodiversity conservation and sustainable management. Phase 4 target countries include: Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Türkiye, Nepal, Vietnam, Bhutan, Cambodia, Samoa, Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Costa Rica, Peru, Jamaica. Phase 4 contributions: 700 million JPY from the MOEJ, 300 million JPY from KNCF (total 1 billion JPY.
Caption: seminar audience