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IUCN WCEL Biodiversity Law Specialist Group
IUCN COMMISSION GROUP

IUCN WCEL Biodiversity Law Specialist Group

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Overview and description

The Biodiversity Law Specialist Group was commissioned in January 2022 to spearhead the promotion of Biodiversity Law issues in the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.

The mission of the Biodiversity Law Specialist Group is to promote scholarship, discourse, capacity-building and legal innovation in the regulation of the multiple relationships between humans and nature; and the intrinsic, relational and instrumental values of biodiversity.

Group leadership

Mrs Maria-Goreti MUAVESI
Maria-Goreti Muavesi has over sixteen years of experience in the field of environmental law. She gained her law degree and post-graduate diploma in legal practice from the University of the South Pacific in 2004 and 2005 respectively and was subsequently admitted to the High Court of Fiji in 2005. She graduated from the University of Wollongong with a Master of Fisheries Policy in 2018 She started her career as a Legal Officer with the Department of Environment where she coordinated and managed programmes for the Unit responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the Environment Management Act (2005) (EMA) and provided legal advice to other Units within the Department. She assisted and managed the formulation of the Environment Management (EIA Processing) Regulations 2007 and Environment Management (Waste Disposal & Recycling) Regulations 2007. She then joined Munro Leys as a Solicitor in the Commercial Group of the firm practising in the areas of foreign investment, commercial property, corporate and environmental law. In 2010 she joined the Fiji Environmental Law Association (FELA) as Coordinator and Environmental Lawyer with the responsibility of setting up the FELA office and coordinating its programmes before embarking on another stint at private practice joining Howards Lawyers as a Senior Associate of the firm managing the environmental and natural resource law practice of the firm. Maria is currently a member of FELA, the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, National Environmental Law of Australia and JICA Alumni Association of Fiji. She has attended various trainings in the field of International and Regional Environmental Law to boost her skill as an environmental lawyer. She is married to Eremodo Muavesi and recently gave birth to a daughter, Frances Muavesi.
Maria-Goreti Muavesi has over sixteen years of experience in the field of environmental law. She gained her law degree and post-graduate diploma in legal practice from the University of the South ...

Key projects of the Biodiversity Law Specialist Group include:  

  • Mapping and championing biodiversity linkages across the WCEL;  
  • Promoting synergies and cooperation of the biodiversity-related conventions and UNCCD, UNFCCC and AEWA;  
  • Biodiversity litigation;  
  • Intra- and inter- disciplinary capacity building of biodiversity law expertise;  
  • Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework GBF) e.g. development of legal guidance on Target 3 of the GBF in collaboration with the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and the the Commission on Educational, Environmental and Social Policy (CEESP).”   

The Chair and deputy Chair of the Specialist Group ha”e been involved in the following events:

  1. Presentation about the SG with Ayman Cherkaoui, Irene Heuser and Pradeep Singh at ASEAN Environmental Law session earlier in the year;
  2. Participated as a speaker with Ayman Cherkaoui in a panel in a webinar organized as part of the 24-hour Environmental Rule of Law Symposium on 31 May 2022 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Montevideo Programme and 50 years of international environmental law;
  3. Presented a paper titled “Assessing the Effectiveness of the CITES Electronic Permitting System in Controlling Illegal Wildlife Trade in Uganda, during the 13th Annual Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship at Vermont Law School, USA
  4. IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law – Online webinar during the 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, “Novel and emerging cross-scale legal issues – How can the Global Biodiversity Framework make progress towards a world “living in harmony with nature”?” 15 December 2022.
  5. Presented on the joint IPBES-IPCC report on Biodiversity and Climate Change and its implications for law at the “Permanent Seminar on Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – Justice and Biodiversity: solutions to climate crisis” Centre for Constitutional Studies, Supreme Court of Justice, Mexico, Online, 23 November 2022.

Achievements

The following achievements have been made:

  1. Developed a database for Biodiversity Law Specialist Group IUCN contacts.
  2. Co-branding with Macquarie University Centre for Environmental Law ‘Law and Nature Dialogues’
  3. Collaborated with WCPA and CEESP on legal guidance paper on 30x30.
  4. Held a discussion at the IUCN WCEL Oslo International Environmental Law Conference with the Earth System Law Taskforce with Pradeep Singh (Oceans SG) with support of Ethics, Climate, ECG.
  5. Participated in the pre-Plastics Debrief for WCEL.
  6. Organised a virtual Side-event during CBD COP15.

Biodiversity Law related YouTube recordings:

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