CO-OP4CBD’s project partners the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Brussels) and the National Museum of Natural History (Paris) held the first meeting of the European Cleaning-House Mechanism (CHM) network on 31 May. The virtual meeting was attended by 15 participants, including CHM National Focal Points (NFPs) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) NFPs from EU countries, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The goal of the event was to provide an opportunity for CHM NFPs to discuss new perspectives induced by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and the possibilities for strengthening and developing the CHM tool and network. Furthermore, this allowed the CO-OP4CBD team to assess the CHM NFPs’ needs and to present the next steps of the project, especially the upcoming training on the Bioland tool and CBD Technical and Scientific cooperation.

As this was the first European CHM European Network meeting since 2018, the event covered a lot of interesting topics. The meeting started with an introductory presentation on CO-OP4CBD, as well as the specific objectives regarding the CHM and CBD technical and scientific cooperation, followed by a presentation of the COP15 decisions related to CHM and technical and scientific cooperation. Furthermore, the participants were presented with the Bioland tool and feedback from its users provided through a recent questionnaire. A productive discussion on the CHM network and the needs of CHM NFP followed.

Overall, the event was informative and productive for all participants, who shared they were happy about the network reinstatement, particularly as they face new challenges when trying to put in place the national implementation of the GBF.