The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the main global agreement on nature conservation – as such it is the engine of global action to preserve biodiversity. Four years ago, COP15 adopted the broad, yet well-defined, Global Biodiversity Framework with its four crucial goals and 23 targets. The framework sets out what needs to be done to ensure that people can prosper with nature. Action to protect and restore nature needs to be backed up with integrative approaches for the sustainability of all ecosystems, while benefit-sharing and sustainable investment, along with planning and collaboration, are vital avenues for enacting the framework.

At COP17, it is time to take stock of progress on the goals and targets, and the expectation is that we can turn our attention to accelerating implementation and action.

While the first global progress review shows advances on all targets, progress is not fast enough to meet any of them. To change this, we need a new approach by which science is channelled toward supporting implementation. Science has generated an understanding of the critical role of ecosystems and biodiversity for human life. We depend on biodiversity for our food, for climate control, for water and for the nutrient cycle. Much of this is not visible to us. Take food, for example – food production depends on healthy soils and pollinators. When agricultural and forest ecosystems are diverse, they can cope with pest outbreaks and recover better from extreme weather events. The Global Biodiversity Framework aims to ensure that all ecosystems are resilient.

The thinking about biodiversity has really changed. The approaches originating in national parks – which led to a focus on species, and particularly rare species – dominated for many decades. Conservation was justified via extinction risks, especially drawing attention to those species that were special or charismatic, like the wild cats or specialist birds and butterflies. It is understandable that they draw our attention and that we feel strongly about them.

However, while extinction rates are indicators of ecosystem functions, the focus has shifted toward justifying conservation based on ecosystem functions in themselves, and people’s dependence on them and the benefits they provide. We now look at the resilience of ecosystems and understand much more about the landscape level and genetic diversity.

Genetic diversity is critical – if you have a very narrow gene pool, there is less resilience in the population. Take food production. We know that farmed ecosystems are usually very simple and uniform, and that makes them less resilient. An outbreak of crop pest or some other disease can be really devastating in a uniform ecosystem with a single crop with little genetic variation. Pests exist all the time in natural ecosystems, but their populations don’t grow to what we would call outbreaks because there is more diversity and balance in a natural system.

Indeed, science-based and nature-based approaches need to be channelled into risk management, because biodiversity is essential for food and water security.

Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems are critical for resilience, crisis preparedness and food security – which are all at the core of national security. We need to maintain ecosystems that ensure continued supply of water, food and other resources we rely on. Although we understand that we need nature everywhere to secure these services that ecosystems provide, global tensions do bring a new angle to this.

By using more nature-based solutions we can reduce disaster risks (such as from flooding) as well as mitigate dependencies and supply chain risks, for example by reducing the dependence of agriculture on imported inputs. But the idea of investing in the ecosystems that can strengthen the resilience of our societies is only just starting to emerge.

Science has a critical role to play, both in understanding ecosystem functions and their complex links to society and in developing solutions. Much of our understanding of biodiversity and biodiversity loss has been generated through science. Indeed, we know the problem. At this point, just asking decision-makers to listen to science is not enough.

Instead, for biodiversity policy to be effective, we need to put the evidence we generate into action to support implementation. We need to focus on what works and what hurdles need to be removed in each institutional context. This is the point where scientists, decision makers and practitioners need to work together, collaborating and co-creating.   

For us in SEI, this kind of science-policy-practice work is a natural way to operate. In our work, high-quality analysis is customized to answer specific needs and then tested and refined in close collaboration with knowledge users. But science-policy work on biodiversity conservation is often more siloed and tends to flow in one direction, from science to policy. Implementation and action do not get the analytical attention they deserve. At COP17, SEI will draw attention to how policy and practice can be supported, and to concrete actions that strengthen the resilience of both ecosystems and societies.

IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, has supported placing societal change, governance and implementation at the forefront, via its three recent assessments: the Nexus Assessment,  IPBES Transformative Change Assessment and the Business and Biodiversity Assessment. I am happy that I will be participating in the IPBES assessment side-events in COP17 in my capacity as IPBES Bureau member. With SEI, I will participate in a number of events that build on our ongoing and new collaborations. 

It is very important to understand that the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis are inextricably linked and must be tackled jointly. Healthy ecosystems are critical for both mitigating climate change and for adaptation and resilience.

Science is clear about the many ways biodiversity and climate are connected, but bringing this into the policy agendas can still be difficult. While climate change can be measured through a global indicator of carbon dioxide equivalent, there is no one indicator to measure biodiversity change. This may be one reason why people are less aware of how their choices impact biodiversity and what they can do to turn those impacts positive. Businesses have for a long time sought simple indicators comparable to those used in climate work, rather than ways to measure and mitigate their specific local and value-chain driven impacts.

With climate, there is a discussion about cutting emissions where it’s most cost efficient. But in biodiversity conservation, you cannot do this. You need to invest in ecosystem sustainability everywhere. Biodiversity in Europe is not tradable with biodiversity in Africa; we need biodiversity in both. The actions that we take in one place don’t reduce the need to conserve somewhere else.

And this is a very, very big difference compared to climate governance mechanisms. The foolishness and unfairness of just thinking “action can be taken somewhere else” is more apparent in biodiversity conservation.

This is something to keep in mind in discussions about emerging mechanisms that use biodiversity credits and biodiversity offsetting – such markets would need to be more local than those for emission reduction and carbon removal. The risk of colonialism creeping into our global thinking is perhaps even more pronounced in nature-based solutions than with technology-based ones. We should not offload conservation action elsewhere without understanding how it will impact people or if it will be governed responsibly.

One approach is to turn ecosystem thinking into risk-management thinking. SEI has a lot to contribute here through our extensive research on climate adaptation and climate risk dynamics. This can be further advanced via SEI’s work on how to mitigate the spreading of risks and how to integrate risk-management thinking into governance. This is all very applicable to ecosystems as well but is not yet done to the degree that is needed.

Another useful approach is sustainable bioeconomy, the applications of which SEI develops in different parts of the world. When bioeconomy is well planned, including diversifying forestry and farming practices, valuing what ecosystems provide beyond timber and crops, and ensuring local communities share benefits, it can support climate and biodiversity goals at the same time.

SEI will contribute to both the biodiversity COP17 and the climate COP31 to share insights on solutions that simultaneously create multiple benefits, including for coastal resilience, food security and local livelihoods. We need much more of this integrated approach where healthy ecosystems underpin climate action, crisis preparedness and water security.