9 September 2006 Dropping Knowledge: Table of Free Voices Seven Equator Prize finalist community representatives participated in Dropping Knowledge Table of Free Voices in Berlin. These community representatives provided the community/grassroots perspective for this one-day event that aimed to harness the knowledge of 120 experts from all over the world in various fields. Participants answered 101 questions asked by people from all over the world on the most pressing issues of our time. Dropping Knowledge has recorded all 11,200 answers given on that day and has used them to launch a global knowledge portal and dialog forum.

7 - 8 September 2006 Community Knowledge Service Workshop The Equator Initiative, in partnership with Ecoagriculture Partners, hosted a two-day consultative workshop with a small but diverse group of stakeholders to design a strategy for developing and implementing a Community Knowledge Service to support community action to enhance livelihoods while conserving biodiversity. This workshop is the latest step in the effort by the UNDP Equator Initiative and partners to develop of an International Community Knowledge Service for biodiversity conservation and enhanced livelihoods. The workshop brought together twelve community representatives with ten partners to design a framework for the Knowledge Service. The group identified initial pilot activities and established guidelines for the governance of the process by a core group of community-based collaborators and partners.

5 - 6 September 2006 GTZ Eschborn Dialogue: Knowledge Powers Development Sharing experience, shaping the future The Equator Initiative participated in this two-day policy dialogue in Eschborn, Germany, hosted by partner institution GTZ. Equator Initiative staff and four representatives from communities actively involved with the program gave presentations during a session on Knowledge in Development: Developing Capacity to Design Processes of Change. The Equator Initiative's contribution focused, in particular, on the role of community knowledge and the importance of opportunities for communities to learn from each other and share experiences in order to develop locally appropriate and sustainable solutions to the hardships caused by poverty and a degraded environment. Community representatives Esther Mwaura-Muiru of GROOTS Kenya; Livingstone Makuleke from the Maluleke Community, South Africa; Donato Bumacas from the Kalinga Mission in the Philippines; and Benson Venegas from the Talamanca Initiative, Costa Rica, shared their experiences with the documentation and sharing of community knowledge and gave personal accounts of how capacity development can shorten innovation times and lead to creative solutions for sustainable development.

Spring 2006 Fordham Lecture Series “People and the Environment: The Role of Environment in Poverty Alleviation" This four- part lecture series will explore the environment as both the "cause of" and "way out" for people living in poverty. It is intended to establish a dialogue and information exchange among policy makers, indigenous peoples and their advocates, academics, business leaders, authors, and the general public. The series is an initiative of Fordham University, an institution founded in the Jesuit tradition of pursuing open intellectual discourse for the betterment of our world, The Nature Conservancy, and the Equator Initiative program of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

18-31 March 2006 The Community Taba: Local Voices for a Global Vision - 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Building on the success of previous community dialogue spaces, the Equator Initiative and partners will host the Community Taba in Curitiba, Brazil as part of the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 8), happening March 20 - 31st, 2006. The Community Taba will highlight grassroots sustainable development victories, focus on the challenges faced by community-led action around the world, and foster an enabling environment for community participation in achieving the 2010 Biodiversity Target as well as the Millennium Development Goals for 2015.