Professor Paul Martin is the Director of the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law in the School of Law at the University of New England.

Along with Marcia Leuzinger, Solange Teles and Gabriel Leunzinger, Paul is the co-author of a new book titled ‘Achieving Biodiversity Protection in Megadiverse Countries’.

 Paul says this book is significant for a number of reasons:

1. It continues two important collaborative programs led by UNE:  
   1. the collaboration between Australian and Brazilian researchers from Mackenzie University and the University Centre of Brasília (Centro Universitário de Brasília, UNICEUB), as well as collaborators from other institutions in both countries. This collaboration has focused on the implementation of environmental and social justice law.
   2. continuation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) fostered international program which evaluates the effectiveness of domestic implementation of the international biodiversity agreements. This collaboration spans Australia, New Zealand, China, Brazil, and South Africa. See  https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/46120
2. It provides a powerful evidence-based analysis for the implementation of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) in two jurisdictions. This investigation involved teams from Australia and Brazil working closely together. The teams analysed the research of a number of aspects in biodiversity protection. The CBD is currently under review and this book can contribute to that review.
3. It demonstrates new empirical approaches to analysing the effectiveness of environmental law instruments at an international and domestic level. The research engaged in an empirical assessment of what needs to be done to improve the effectiveness of international instruments. There has been a major gap in this area and this work should provide efficient methods to advance reforms.

Following is a list of chapters for this book:

1: The issues, methods and evidence

2: Controlling the biodiversity impacts of agriculture

3: Biodiversity risk management in mining

4: Creating and managing marine protected areas

5: Social justice and the management of protected areas

6: Low impact recreational use and biodiversity protection

7: Partnered governance of biodiversity

8: Biodiversity intelligence from satellites

9: The challenge of using drones

10: Funding biodiversity conservation

11: Governing the governance system

12: Strategies to improve outcomes

Paul has organised an online launch via zoom webinar for 22 May 2020 in Brazil and 23 May 2020 in Australia.

You can register for this event through the link below:

Brazil time and Date: May 22^nd 2020, 8:00 PM

Australian Eastern Standard Time and Date: May 23^rd 2020, 9:00 AM.

There will be four presentations on the following areas:

• providing a brief overview of the diagnoses (mining, agriculture, marine life, indigenous issues and protected areas),

• innovations in biodiversity governance (low impact use protected areas, satellites and drones), and

• meta-governance (funding, governing the governance system itself).

 We would love you to join us – to avoid the risk of ‘zoom-bombing’ we will need you to register at https://une-au.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LjZ9tLaoR9yhdfqpKAEKvw

We will then send you the details of the log in for the webinar.