UNEP Foresight Panel on SIDS
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has organized a high-level
panel of 15 experts on islands to prepare a Foresight Report on emerging
problems and possibilities for sustainable development in Small Island
Developing States (SIDS) as an input to the 3rd UN Conference of Small
Island Developing States to be held in Apia, Samoa, in 2014. The panel
members prepared suggestions for emerging challenges in SIDS, and then met
for three days in Cambridge, England, on 14-16 May, to identify the priority
emerging issues for further development in their report.
The panel meeting took place at beautiful Madingley Hall, an Elizabethan
manor outside of Cambridge that is used by the University of Cambridge as a
conference centre. The UNEP panel met in the wood-panelled Library, and
another UNDESA group on socio-economic issues met in a conference room. We
also had joint meetings, and gathered together for lunch in the dining room.
In the evenings, we walked into the village of Madingley to eat at the pub.
The last night we went to Cambridge, where a local academic took us to a pub
on Jesus Green alongside the River Cam for dinner.
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The gardens of Madingley House
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Beautifully-kept gardens and topiary collection
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Gardens; the thatched gate house; view from the front of Madingley
House
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The church and lake on the Madingley House grounds; a barrier and tunnel to
help toads cross the road
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The UNEP Foresight Panel for SIDS met in the library
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Marc Gramberger, facilitator of the foresight group
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Lunch was served at long tables in the ornate dining room
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The Three Horseshoes Pub in Madingley, where we had dinner;
departure; rapeseed fields on the way to Cambridge
Cambridge
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The River Cam, with its locks and houseboats
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Jesus Green in the middle of Cambridge, and one of a row of odd
knitted coverings for lamp posts
