Notification 2015-011

Dear Madam/Sir, Reference is made to Notification 2014-126 of 30 October 2014 inviting nominations for the Caribbean Sub-regional Capacity-Building Workshop on Mainstreaming Biosafety into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and Resource Mobilization, which was to be held in Bridgetown, Barbados from 1 to 5 December 2014 but had to be postponed because of unforeseen circumstances. I have the pleasure to inform you that the workshop will now be held from 9 to 13 March 2015 at the Heritage Hotel in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda, back-to-back with the fifth meeting of the Regional Steering Committee for the United Nations Environment Programme/Global Environment Facility (UNEP/GEF) Regional Project for Implementing National Biosafety Frameworks in the Caribbean. Accordingly, I wish to invite Parties from the Caribbean sub-region that had not yet done so, to nominate one official who is involved in the review/update of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), preferably the NBSAP Coordinator or the CBD National Focal Point, to take part in the workshop. The Secretariat will cover the cost of participation of the official nominee from each Party to the Protocol. This will include an economy class ticket to travel to and from St. John’s, and daily subsistence for the duration of the workshop. The UNEP/GEF project already invited the National Project Coordinators (NPC) and the Cartagena Protocol National Focal Points from each of the countries participating in the project to attend the Steering Committee meeting and will be supporting their participation in the workshop as well. In order to enable the Secretariat to finalize arrangements for the workshop, the attached nomination form together with an official letter addressed to the Executive Secretary should be submitted by fax to +1 514 288 6588, or by e-mail at secretariat@cbd.int as soon as possible but no later than 11 February 2015. Please note that the workshop will be conducted in English only. Details on the workshop will be made available soon on the Secretariat’s website at http://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=BSMBWS-2015-02. I would like to thank you for your cooperation and continued support for the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Please accept, Madam/Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Executive Secretary

To: CBD National Focal Points for: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, cc: National Focal Points for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety