---

Contents

Introduction
1. Biodiversity and ecosystem services of hardwood floodplain forests: Past, present and future from the perspective of local communities in West Ukraine (László Demeter)
2. Biocultural adaptations and traditional ecological knowledge in a historical village from Maramureş Land, Romania (Cosmin Ivaşcu and Laszlo Rakosy)
3. "It does matter who leans on the stick": Hungarian herders' perspectives on biodiversity, ecosystem services and their drivers (Zsolt Molnár, László Sáfián, János Máté, Sándor Barta, Dávid Pelé Sütő, Ábel Molnár and Anna Varga)
4. Traditional herders' knowledge and worldview and their role in managing biodiversity and ecosystem-services of extensive pastures (József Kis, Sándor Barta, Lajos Elekes, László Engi, Tibor Fegyver, József Kecskeméti, Levente Lajkó and János Szabó)
5. High nature value seminatural grasslands - European hotspots of biocultural diversity (Dániel Babai)
6. Rangers bridge the gap: Integration of traditional ecological knowledge related to wood pastures into nature conservation (Anna Varga, Anita Heim, László Demeter and Zsolt Molnár)
7. Reindeer husbandry in the boreal forest: Sami ecological knowledge or the science of "working with nature" (Samuel Roturier, Jakob Nygård, Lars-Evert Nutti, Mats-Peter Åtot and Marie Roué)
8. The Sable for Evenk reindeer herders in southeastern Siberia: Interplaying drivers of changes on biodiversity and ecosystem services - climate change, worldwide market economy, and extractive Industries (Alexandra Lavrillier, Semen Gabyshev and Maxence Rojo)
9. Sacred sites and biocultural diversity conservation in Kyrgyzstan: Co-production of knowledge between traditional practitioners and scholars (Sezdbek Kalkanbekov and Aibek Samakov)
Annex 1 - Agenda of the ILK dialogue workshop
Annex 2 - Participants list for the ILK dialogue workshop
Annex 3 - Author bionotes

---

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) includes as one of its operating principles the following commitment:

Recognize and respect the contribution of indigenous and local knowledge to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems.
UNEP/IPBES.MI/2/9, Appendix 1, para. 2 (d)

To spearhead its work on this challenging objective, IPBES Plenary created at its Second Meeting a task force on indigenous and local knowledge systems (ILK).

The present document is a contribution to the IPBES regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia. Its aim is twofold:

- To assist the co-chairs, coordinating lead authors and lead authors of the regional assessment by facilitating their access to indigenous and local knowledge relevant to the assessment theme.

- To pilot the initial approaches and procedures for building ILK into IPBES assessments that are under development by the ILK task force in order to test their efficacy and improve the final ILK approaches and procedures that the task force will propose to the Plenary of IPBES.

To meet these two objectives in the framework of the regional assessment, the task force on ILK implemented a step-wise process including:

- A global call for submissions on ILK related to biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe and Central Asia;

- A selection of the most relevant submissions from ILK holders and experts, taking into account geographical representation, representation of diverse knowledge systems and gender balance;

- Organization of an Europe and Central Asia Dialogue Workshop (Paris, 11-13 January 2016) to bring together the selected ILK holders, ILK experts and experts on ILK with the co-chairs and several authors of the IPBES assessment report;

- Development of proceedings from the Europe and Central Asia Dialogue workshop in Paris that provide a compendium of relevant ILK for authors to consider, alongside ILK available from the scientific and grey literature, when drafting the Europe and Central Asia assessment report; and

- Organisation of local follow-up work sessions by the selected ILK holders, ILK experts and experts on ILK in order to work with their communities to address additional questions and gaps identified with authors at the Paris workshop.

These contributions from the Europe and Central Asia Dialogue Workshop in Paris and its various follow-up meetings, provide a compendium of ILK about biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe and Central Asia that might not otherwise be available to the authors of the assessment. It complements the body of ILK on biodiversity in Europe and Central Asia that the authors are able to access from the scientific and grey literature.

---