On Monday, the 2^nd of August, 2021, my alarm clock rang early in the morning. It took me around 9 hours to travel by train from Hesse to Ruegen, Germany’s largest island in the North-East. After arriving, I was happy to find myself on the second to last ferry boat of the day from the Island of Ruegen to the Isle of Vilm. After another 20 minutes running time, the other passengers and I took our first steps on the isle. The passengers were young academics who participated in the “interdisciplinary science meeting on biodiversity research under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),” which was organised by the “International Academy for Nature Conservation Isle of Vilm” (INA). The INA is part of a branch office of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), which is one of the government’s departmental research agencies and works in the area of responsibility of the German federal environment ministry. The interdisciplinary science meeting takes place every summer and mainly addresses bachelor´s, master´s and Ph.D. students. Mrs. Stadler, the meeting host, warmly welcomed the students and showed the way to the reception desk. Along the way, a big information board close to the harbour provides every arriving guest with information on the fascinating history of the isle:

• The Isle of Vilm was already settled in Stone Age 7,500 years ago.
• In Middle Ages, the isle became a Christian place of pilgrimage.
• During the 19^th and 20^th century, many artists came to the isle to be inspired by the nature, which resulted in some paintings of scenes around the isle.
• In 1936, Vilm became a nature protection site.
• From 1962 to 1990, the isle was used by the government of the German Democratic Republic to host guests.
• In 1990, the biosphere reserve Southeast-Ruegen was designated. Most parts of Vilm are covered by the core area of the biosphere reserve. In the same year, the INA was founded.
• Today, the INA organises up to 70 events and welcomes around 1,700 participants from all over the world per year.

I was happy and grateful to be one of those participants this year.
After the registration, everyone looked for their assigned house. Every house consists of several guestrooms. I was the only one at my floor because of the corona situation. After dinner, the meeting started. The programme began with an introduction, followed by a presentation about the involvement of youth and young adults in international conventions.
On Tuesday, Prof. Dr. Volker Mosbrugger gave the first presentation of the day. He mentioned some surveys and reports like the IPBES Global Assessment Report (GCE students directly reported from IPBES 7 where the report was adopted) which document the ongoing biodiversity crisis. The professor stressed that there is still much unknown in biodiversity and presented the “Research Initiative for the Conservation of Biodiversity” of the German federal ministry of education, which aims to close some of those knowledge gaps.
Afterwards, each participant of the meeting presented his or her current scientific project for 20 minutes, followed by ten minutes of discussion. The topics were wide-ranging and interdisciplinary but always with a reference to the CBD. I presented some of the results of my master´s thesis, “The accountability of biodiversity strategies at the level of the Convention on Biological Diversity, European Union and the Federal Republic of Germany,” which I had done at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). Some topics that other participants dealt with included the wild harvesting of medicinal plants, agri-environmental policy in Bavaria, effectiveness of UNESCO biosphere reserves, environmental ethics, wild mammals in urban areas, sea use planning, and knowledge of species.

After lunch, Mrs. Stadler offered an isle tour. Because most parts of Vilm are covered by the core area of the biosphere reserve, there is only one path which leads around the northern part of the isle and guests must not leave it. Mrs. Stadler explained that animals like deer could migrate from the Island of Rugen to the Isle of Vilm (that is even smaller than one square kilometre) when the water is frozen in winter. However, the distance would be too long for smaller animals like squirrels. Our meeting host emphasised the enormous diversity of ecological conditions on that isle by giving the following example: Grapevine snails can be found on one side of the isle, but not on the other side. The reason is that one side of the isle has some lime that offers a favourable environment for the snails, whereas the other side is too acidic. I was impressed by all of the deadwood and old trees, which can rarely be found in German forests. However, the forest of Vilm cannot be considered a virgin forest in the strict sense because it was used by humans in the past. Mrs. Stadler showed us the oldest tree on the isle at roughly 600 years old. However, the tree is not alive anymore.

On Wednesday, the presentations continued.
On Thursday, the 5^th of August, 2021, the meeting came to an end. After breakfast, the ferry boat brought us back to the Island of Ruegen.
After the meeting, every participant was invited to submit a short text on his or her scientific project. Those contributions have been collected by the BfN and will be published in a BfN script soon.
I liked the meeting very much. The programme was dense and demonstrated the highly interdisciplinary subject of biodiversity with all its input. Besides the presentations, it was refreshing to talk to so many young and motivated people after a time of corona lockdowns. And, finally, it is worthwhile to visit the Isle of Vilm, with its fascinating history and nature. The Isle of Vilm is not just a place to talk about the conservation of nature – it is a place to show how nature develops if nature is allowed to be nature.

If you are interested to participate in one of the next meetings, regularly have a look on the homepage of the INA.

The post Talking about Biodiversity on an Isle full of History and Nature appeared first on Global Change Ecology.

Exciting Time

In the spring of 2020, I did my internship at the division of “International Cooperation on Biodiversity” of the “Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety” in Bonn for twelve weeks. Three reasons that made it a very exciting and special time were:
– Germany prepared itself to takeover the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (second half of 2020);
– The draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework has been developed – which originally was planned to be adopted during the CBD COP 15 (15th “Conference of the Parties” to the “Convention on Biological Diversity”) in Kunming, China, in October, 2020, within the German EU Presidency. However, the COP 15 has been postponed to 2021 due to the corona pandemic;
– The corona pandemic has started to spread in Germany.

Corona and the Internship

At the beginning of the internship, I was mainly involved in the preparations for the CBD COP 15. However, the CBD COP 15 process was shifted because of the corona pandemic. Concerning my internship alone, the corona pandemic had disadvantages as well as advantages:
The biggest disadvantage was that I could not enter the ministry building anymore after my first weeks. Instead, I had to work from home like my colleagues did but it turned out to work surprisingly well.
The biggest advantage was that I got insight how a federal ministry is working during a crisis. Due to the crisis, I could witness how the ministry handles a totally new, dynamic situation right from the start and I was closely involved. My tasks switched from the topic “CBD COP 15” to the new topic “nature destruction and zoonoses”.

Tasks

Some of my tasks were:
– Review of comments on the latest IPCC (“Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”) Assessment Report (AR6) within the peer review process;
– Analysis of preparatory documents for the CBD COP 15 and defining and evaluating indicators;
– Contributing to the preparations of a Federal Press Conference held by the Environment Minister;
– Preparation of an interview with the Environment Minister;
– Involvement in the creation of an internal strategic discussion paper;
– Responding to citizen´s e-mails;
– Preparation of an internal expert talk and giving an internal presentation;
– Preparation of speaking notes for the Minister and Parliamentary State Secretary;
– Preparation of the participation of the Minister in an online-panel;
– Review of different working papers, amongst others, within the interdepartmental coordination.

Working as Policy Officer

I am very grateful that my unit and subdivision had confidence in me and handed tasks with high responsibilities over to me. Those sometimes challenging tasks allowed me to get deeper insights into policy and now I feel better prepared for a job position after the university.
I hold the employees of the Ministry in high esteem. They have to deal with a high workload and oftentimes must fulfil their demanding tasks, which have a high responsibility, in a little while. Those experiences were very valuable to me because I could feel the work as policy officer very closely.
In my opinion, the advantages of being a policy officer in the Ministry outweigh clearly. For example, one can participate in international conferences all over the world, one has to manage changing, challenging tasks and topics and is close to the highly topical political events. But most of all, the greatest advantage is that I had the feeling that one’s work can really help to improve the protection of nature. And that’s what is necessary to keep alive the underlying motivation for the daily work.
I appreciate very much that I was treated like a normal member of the team and am very happy that I can continue to support the Ministry together with my new very nice team of the GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH) as student assistant.

If you are interested in an internship at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, check the latest organisation plan and application requirements (the German language is a precondition).

The post Internship at the Federal Ministry for the Environment in times of the corona pandemic appeared first on Global Change Ecology.