policy-making

Here we are, on our way to wave goodbye the first quarter of the 21^st century, and the Earth is still experiencing its largest loss of life and biodiversity since the demise of the dinosaurs.

One million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, many within decades, admits the global Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on the eve of the adoption of its boldest plan ever, the New Global Agreement to Safeguard Nature.

Europe is a major player in the political response to this global crisis mobilised through its own Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. In recognition of its global responsibilities, the EU has taken bold steps towards global leadership in setting policies and commitments.

However, political commitments are not sufficient to mitigate and reverse biodiversity loss. To secure the future of the planet and society politicians, business leaders, scientists and society leaders must all prioritise the conservation and restoration of ecosystems through strong legislation and smart decisions.

The recently adopted by the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) provides the basis for the instruments for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and for equitable sharing of their benefits, including the genetic resources.

About the projects

The new Horizon Europe-funded projects CO-OP4CBD (abbreviation for Co-operation for the Convention on Biological Diversity) and BioAgora (or Bio Knowledge Agora) unite experts from renowned European organisations to enhance the coordination and strengthen the EU support for the implementation of the Convention.

Both projects will make more effective use of existing networks of experts with the aim to transform the EU policy-making process by supplying decision-makers with access to top European scientific expertise on biodiversity and social transformation.

CO-OP4CBD

CO-OP4CBD kicked-off in December 2022 and will be running until 2026 with the grant of EUR 4 million, provided by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.

The project will put in place a mechanism for mobilising, engaging and sharing expertise necessary for effective participation of EU member States and bodies in the CBD policy and decision-making processes.

Experts will provide advice to the European Commission, Member States and associated countries’ delegations of negotiators and technical experts.

*CO-OP4CBD kick off meeting in Brussels (Belgium), February 2023*.

Furthermore, the project will increase access to European expertise through enhanced mechanisms for promoting technical and scientific cooperation not only for negotiations, but also for implementation, monitoring and review of the efforts of the Parties towards the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

You can visit COOP4CBD on coop4cbd.eu and follow the project on Twitter (@coop4cbd) and LinkedIn (/COOP4CBD).

Consortium:

The consortium of CO-OP4CBD comprises 9 universities and research centers from across Europe. Together, they bring together experts from various backgrounds with extensive experience in EU projects in the field of biodiversity.

Full list of partners:

BioAgora

Logo of the Horizon Europe project BioAgora
(abbreviation for Bio Knowledge Agora).

BioAgora was launched in July 2022 and is a five-year project with nearly EUR 12 million granted from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.

The project is tasked to build the Science Service for Biodiversity platform (SSBD) as the scientific pillar of the EU Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD).

The KCBD, the European Commission’s initiative on better knowledge management for policy-making on biodiversity, plays a central role in the EU biodiversity policy landscape, and therefore BioAgora will support orchestrating a harmonious dialogue among scientists, other knowledge holders and policy actors in the biodiversity policy arena.

The project partners believe that science, policy, and society need to work closer together, if they wish to enable the sustainability transformation in Europe.

*BioAgora kick-off meeting, Helsinki (Finland), November 2022*.

A key part of this transformation will depend on a stronger role of knowledge, whether from science or practitioner experience in decision-making and implementation of decisions on the ground. BioAgora aims to facilitate this interaction.

“Biodiversity and natural capital have to be integrated into public and business decision-making at all levels.
Collective actions and pluralistic principles have to be at the core of biodiversity policy-making efforts, which is why the Science Service for Biodiversity is envisioned as a bridge between science, policy, and society.”
comments project coordinator Kati Vierikko from the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Visit BioAgora on https://bioagora.eu/. You can also follow the project on Twitter (@BioAgoraEU), LinkedIn (BioAgora Project) and YouTube (@BioAgoraProject).

Consortium:

The consortium of BioAgora consists of 22 partnering organisations from thirteen European countries, all of which bring their extensive knowledge of biodiversity policy and decision-making.

Full list of partners:

SYKE: Finnish Environment Institute
UB: The University of Bucharest
UniTrento: The University of Trento
INRAE: National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment
EV INBO: Research Institute of Nature and Forest
PBL: Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management
NINA: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
UFZ: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
DC: Delbaere Consulting
FVB-IGB: Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries
CREAF: Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre
ESSRG: Environmental social science research group
PENSOFT: Pensoft Publishers
ERCE PAN: European Regional Centre for Ecohydrology
Euronovia
WR: Wageningen University & Research
ECSA: European Citizen Science Association
AWI: Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
UNEP-WCMC
UK CEH: UK Centre For Ecology & Hydrology
Alternet Europe
OPPLA

Dedicated to bridging the gap between science, policy, industry and society, Pensoft is striving to maximise ForestPaths’ impact in meeting Europe’s climate and biodiversity targets

The backdrop

The European Union (EU) has set ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% in 2030 and to become climate neutral by 2050, which require urgent and major societal and economic reforms.

In the meantime, the EU also aims to protect biodiversity and reverse the degradation of ecosystems, while using natural resources to mitigate climate change.

ForestPaths – a recently started Horizon Europe project will help meet Europe’s climate and biodiversity targets by providing clear policy options that enable European forests and the forest-based sector to contribute to climate change mitigation, while conserving their biodiversity and sustaining the services they provide to people.

As an experienced science communicator, Pensoft is dedicated to maximising ForestPaths’ impact. The team will do so by means of tailored communication, dissemination and exploitation strategies aimed at sharing the project’s results with relevant stakeholder groups.

Furthermore, Pensoft is tasked with the development and long-term maintenance of the CANOPY platform, whose aim is to support policymakers and national and regional authorities by granting them access to the knowledge and scientific evidence acquired within ForestPaths long after the project is finalised.

The ForestPaths approach

ForestPaths will work with practitioners through four demo cases to determine climate- and biodiversity-smart forest management options.

Building on these options, the project will collaborate with policymakers and key authorities through a series of Policy labs, where the partners will co-design policy pathways, which will then be analysed with next-generation integrated assessment techniques.

Lastly, ForestPaths will apply this framework for an all-round assessment of the climate mitigation potential of European forests and the forest-based sector.

The ForestPaths legacy

ForestPaths’ policy pathways – as well as their supporting information and evidence – will be made openly available through the project’s policy-support platform CANOPY, hosted on the ForestPaths website.

The platform, whose launch is scheduled for 2026, will feature an interactive policy analysis tool explaining the policy pathways and showcasing their implications, as well as providing detailed assessment results and policy recommendations in an easily accessible manner. Its long-term mission is to become the go-to place for easily accessible assessment results and policy recommendations.

“We are excited to be doing our part for Europe’s fight for climate neutrality by extending ForestPaths reach to policy, industry and society at large! As an open-access scientific publisher engaged in about 50 environmental research projects, Pensoft echoes ForestPaths’ aim to support the EU’s climate neutrality transition through what we are sure will be a prolific international research collaboration,” says ForestPaths’ WP7 leader Anna Sapundzhieva.

You can find out more about the project on the ForestPath website: forestpaths.eu. Stay up to date with the project’s progress on Twitter (@forestpaths_eu) and LinkedIn (/forestpaths-project).

Tag: policy-making

Pensoft turns up ‘the voice’ of two strategic EU projects aiming to safeguard nature