November 23, 2022, the United Nations Environment Programme - International Ecosystem Management Partnership (UNEP-IEMP) presented the “Ecosystem assessment in the Lancang-Mekong Basin for sustainable livelihoods” report as a critical knowledge product at the Green Lancang-Mekong Initiative: Towards COP15 – Senior-level Roundtable Dialogue on Integrated Ecosystem Management in the Lancang-Mekong Region Agenda. Prof. Junguo Liu and Dr. Yuehan Dou were invited to the Senior-level Roundtable Dialogue as key authors and UNEP collaborators.

The “Ecosystem assessment in the Lancang-Mekong Basin for sustainable livelihoods” report was produced by Prof. Junguo Liu, Dr. Yuehan Dou and their team under the context of the project “Improving Ecosystem Management for Sustainable Livelihoods within the Framework of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation,” aimed to assess the changes in the ecosystem for and the ecosystem service-dependent livelihoods with case studies demonstrated through pilot activities at selected areas in Cambodia and China and provided recommendations from the perspectives of both the case-study level and LMB regional level to comprehensively promote the improvement of ecosystem health, natural resources management, and sustainable livelihoods. The report will be published by UNEP in 2023.

The project is funded by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, through the China Trust Fund to UNEP and partly supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20060402). Interventions are implemented jointly by the UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, in partnership with UNEP- IEMP and the Lancang-Mekong Environmental Cooperation Centre, as well as the Biodiversity, People and Landscapes Unit of UNEP Ecosystems Division.

Example of results 1: Most frequently mentioned words regarding the quality of local lives by the inhabitants of Phnom Kulen National Park, the pilot of Cambodia

Example of results 2: Changes in livelihoods in Mengla County, the pilot of China