UNESCO Chair Land within sea: Biodiversity & Sustainability in Atlantic Islands

The domains and scope of the proposed UNESCO Chair are integrated into the Major Programme II - Natural sciences and related with the UNESCO global priority: Africa. Effective cooperation will be established with small island states in that continent and with Caribbean states. This Chair will abide to by the global priority for gender equality, by ensuring full access of female teachers, researchers, and students to the project activities. While considering Atlantic islands, the chair will address the small island developing states that, together with other islands, remain particularly vulnerable to crises, to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Therefore, this UNESCO Chair will closely target the objectives of the Small Island Developing States – UNESCO’s Action Plan, namely: building capacities through education and training and promoting scientific research and conservation of the environment, highlighting issues related to biodiversity and the ocean. The chair also addresses UNESCO’s mission regarding sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, communication, and information. The continuous rise of the education of young people represents an enormous potential for change, and the chair will contribute to providing more educational and scientific resources and opportunities, specifically at the post-graduation level. This is linked to the strategic objective of developing education systems to foster high quality and inclusive lifelong learning for all.  The targets of the chair also address the strategic objective of strengthening open science and scientific literacy, technology and innovation systems and policies, regionally. The chair is fully committed to the overarching objective of sustainable development since its main objective is to promote the necessary sharing of knowledge to allow the increase of human wellbeing without compromising natural resources and ecosystem services. The strategic objective of promoting international scientific cooperation on critical challenges to sustainable development is fully addressed by the chair domain and scope, since the anthropogenic impacts on the ocean, on freshwater resources, and on terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity will be one of the main teaching and research topics. According to UNESCO, at least 40% of the global ocean is heavily impacted by human activities, and 60% of the world’s major marine ecosystems that underpin livelihoods have been degraded or are being used unsustainably. In this context, Atlantic and Caribbean islands are well placed to develop scientific knowledge and new approaches in a changing world, allowing a more sustainable relationship with the ocean. Thus, the chair will be fully tuned with other global initiatives devoted to the Atlantic, such as the AIR Centre, particularly, with the common aim to help build a shared information system, based on reliable, science-based data, addressing the world's ocean, in the framework and according to the objectives of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

In biogeography and evolution, islands are the first unit that the mind can grasp, allowing an understanding of biodiversity patterns, the emergence of evolutionary lines, and speciation/extinction processes. Islands still include many endemic life forms and remnants of primordial biological communities. Some are considered as biodiversity hotspots (e.g., the Macaronesian Islands), and illustrate the evolutionary processes first described by Darwin in the Galapagos. At the marine level, islands have revealed phenomena associated with global processes such as the glaciations. However, many islands’ biota have suffered profound changes after human settlement, due to the clearance of the native vegetation, the introduction of exotic organisms, and the spread of human activities both on land and sea. The Azores archipelago, and many other Atlantic islands and archipelagos, are a good example of such a model, still including a wealth of endemic species, but with extensive areas profoundly changed by human action. The Atlantic islands face important development challenges, aiming to improve the wellbeing of the resident population, without compromising their natural heritage. Moreover, those islands include a panoply of protected areas and biosphere reserves. Meanwhile, scientific research dedicated to island geology and biodiversity has shown considerable quantitative/qualitative growth, spanning areas such as volcanology, oceanography, climatology, paleontology, biodiversity (land, freshwater and marine), and land management. However, challenges such as the threats of invasive species, the need to implement sustainable production systems, including organic farming, forest valorization and ecotourism, are very eminent in many islands, as well as the need to raise the educational and scientific levels of the entire population. With other global initiatives emerging in the Atlantic, the Azores could work as a driver for increasing the scientific and educational cooperation between Atlantic islands, and this chair would be a decisive element on the design and implementation of this scientific network.

The chair addresses the SDGs 4, 6, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 17 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There is a need to better quantify the ecosystem services provided by island forests and plant cover, namely, to reinforce resilience to climate-related hazards and natural disasters, and to integrate climate change measures into island policies, strategies, and planning.  This will be a focal point of this UNESCO Chair, through the development of advanced training in quantitative geospatial analysis, limnology, and coastal ecology, which will also contribute to improving education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. An integrated approach, considering the different ecosystems that should be preserved and can contribute to mitigating climate change. Particular attention will be given to coastal ecosystems, identifying negative impacts from land-based activities and the unsustainable use of resources, stimulating the creation and management of marine protected areas, and increasing the economic benefits to small island developing states. In this framework, this UNESCO Chair is closely connected to the strategies of the MAB program, the objectives of the 50th anniversary of this scientific program and the International Geoscience and Geoparks program (IGGP). The chair also aims to increase scientific knowledge, and develop research capacity, considering the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) criteria and guidelines on the Transfer of Marine Technology. However, islands also include peculiar terrestrial habitats and species that are often threatened or endangered. Therefore, this Chair aims to support the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, and mountains, in line with obligations under international agreements. In this context, this Chair will include postgraduate training and research devoted to sustainable management of forests and islands’ water ecosystems, including their biodiversity, thereby contributing to reduce natural habitat degradation and halt biodiversity loss. Thus, biodiversity evaluation and valorisation and the improvement of biological invasion management will be main targets of this Chair. This will be closely linked to research addressing protected areas, particularly Biosphere Reserves and Ramsar Sites, as well as Geoparks. With the cooperation of each partner, this UNESCO Chair will endeavour to contribute to a more sustainable development of all the Atlantic and Caribbean islands.

The creation of a scientific and educational network linking Atlantic and Caribbean islands and addressing biodiversity and environmental sustainability; building the capacity of the partner institutions and the respective islands in terms of international cooperation in education and research, addressing the environment, biodiversity, and sustainability; the development of postgraduate training through the accreditation of a Master in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution; the development of postgraduate training and summer schools (ecotourism, marine biogeography and paleontology, limnology, quantitative and geospatial analysis, island plant evolution and conservation); the development of common research projects, including student and researcher interchange, and the use of digital technologies for easier communication and cooperation.